Stachyose occurrence

Occurrence in plants used for human and animal food is very common, so the raffinose oligosaccharides may be of some nutritional significance. For example, the seeds of food legumes often contain raffinose in amounts equal to or greater than the amounts of sucrose. Cottonseed and soybean meals (after oil extraction) are fairly rich in raffinose and stachyose, respectively.80 86... 

Wada and Yamazaki have reported42 the occurrence in tobacco seeds of a non-reducing trisaccharide isomeric with raffinose, which has now been shown to be identical with planteose.80 French and Wild noted67 the presence of planteose (detected as planteobiose, after mild, acid hydrolysis) in extracts from Teucrium canadense and in ash manna. Since planteose and planteobiose have only recently been recognized as distinct entities, it is likely that planteose may have escaped detection in many other plant sources, where it undoubtedly accompanies raffinose and stachyose. 

Occurrence. Besides being a component of stachyose, this trisaccharide has been found to occur free in the ash manna from Fraxinus omus and F. rotundifolia. 

In the phloem sap of Betula pendula at 0°C, sugars found (in order of concentration) were D-fructose > sucrose > stachyose > D-glucose > maltose > raffinose, while in the xylem sap the order was D-fructose > D-glucose > sucrose > > stachyose (149). The ubiquitous occurrence of D-glucose and D-fruc-tose is exemplified by its presence in sap (149, 150), bark (179), roots (109), and trunkwood (93). 

---