ABSTRACT
The Caribbean island of Grenada furnishes the popular aphrodisiac drug Bois Bandé, which consists of the stem bark and the roots of Chione venosa (sw.) URBAN var. venosa (Rubiaceae), a native tree growing in the islands' rain forest. The phytochemical investigation of dichloromethane and methanolic-aqueous extracts of the bark and the roots yielded three acetophenone derivatives described for the first time in plants - ortho-hydroxy-acetophenone-azine (1), acetophenone-2-O-[beta-D-apiofuranosyl-(1''-->6')-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside] (2) and acetophenone-2-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (3) - along with five known compounds, alpha-morroniside (4), sweroside (5), diderroside (6), daucosterol (7) and beta-sitosterol (8). Their structures were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR analysis, UV-Vis and ESI-MS.
