Picrotoxanes monolactone

The most thorough examination of a species in the Picrodendraceae was conducted by Koike, Ohmoto, and coworkers on P. baccatum (36,46,53-56,77,78). This tree is endemic to the West Indies. The plants investigated by the authors were harvested in the Botanical Garden of Bogor, Indonesia in 1986. In the next 15-20 years this Japanese group isolated 9 monolactone sesquiterpenes and 19 norditerpene picrotoxanes from this plant material. At first, these researchers examined a relatively small sample of the bark of the tree to determine the structural type of the toxins. Thus, 1.2 kg of dried bark were extracted successively with n-hexane. 

So far, Dendrobium species have yielded 21 pseudoalkaloids of the picrotoxane type and 27 sesquiterpene picrotoxanes (5 dilactones, 20 monolactones. 

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