Daphnandra micrantha

Daphnandra micrantha Benth. (Monimiaceae)[2SS] Daphnandra species Dt-7 (Monimiaceae)[2SS] Daphnandra species unnamed (Monimiaceae)(234]... 

Daphnandrine occurs together with two other bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids (daphnoline and micranthine) in the bark of the Australian tree Daphnandra micrantha Benth. Pyman (111) recorded the isolation of the three alkaloids and observed their physical, chemical, and physiological properties. The chemical structures of these compounds were determined by Bick, Ewen, and Todd (112). 

Alkaloid from Daphnandra micrantha, Benth. Needles + CHCl, from CHCL, M.p. 196 de-conm. (sinters above 190 ). Spar. sol. EtOH, CH(. Insol. H2O, Et20. Irohde s reagent —> indigo to emerald-gremi col. 

DAPHNANDRA spp. Bancroft recorded the presence of alkaloids in several Daphnandra species, notably D. repandula and D. micrantha. The latter was examined by Pyman and shown to contain three alkaloids, daphnandrine, micranthine and daphnoline. 

The presence of alkaloids was discovered in many other Queensland plants by Dr. T.L. Bancroft, who continued the work of his father Joseph. Although the techniques and facilities available in Australia at that time were hardly adequate for the isolation, purification and structural determination of new alkaloids, or even for the identification of ones already known, the pioneering investigations by the Bancrofts, Petrie and others nevertheless formed a starting point for subsequent studies. T.L. Bancroft, for example, obtained impure samples of alkaloids from certain Daphnandra species (Monimiaceae) [11, 12], and studied their pharmacology. His work was later extended by Pyman in England 113, who isolated crystalline bases from D. micrantha that proved eventually [14] to belong to the same biscoclaurine series as berbamine (1). 

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