Flavonoids and Coumarins from Underground Parts

About seventy phenolic compounds have been isolated from the underground parts of this species. The main phenolic compound is isoliquiritin (109) in quantities of 0.1-0.3% from the dried roots (228). Shinoda and Ueeda have reported a flavanone glucoside liquiritin (110) from G. glabra (229, 230). The corresponding chalcone, isoliquiritin 

The oldest licorice in Japan derived from G. glabra has been stored in the Shosoin for over twelve hundred years (244). Shosoin is an Imperial 

Treasure House in the city of Kara, one of the ancient capital cities of Japan. The wooden house built in 756 A.D. contains many valuable items including sixty kinds of crude drugs. Shibata examined the 

Four 2-methylisoflavones (121-123, 121a), and a coumarin, liqcoumarin (124), were isolated along with an isoflavone, glyzaglabrin (125), from licorice cultivated in India by Bhardwaj et al. (246-249). Isolation of these compounds from other licorice collections has not been reported. 

On examining the phenolic constituents of G. glabra cultivated in Japan we isolated two new pyrano-2-arylbenzofurans kanzonols U (144) and V (145), a pyrano-3-arylcoumarin kanzonol W (146), a diprenylated 

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