Snowdrop chemical identified

By David Bradley2010-03-01T00:00:00

Source: istockphoto

Spanish scientists identify 17 potential medicinals in the common winter-flowering snowdrop

Reporting in the journal Plant medica,¹ Jaume Bastida and colleagues, of the University of Barcelona's department of natural products, plant biology and edaphology,have extracted 17 alkaloids, nitrogen-containing natural products, three of which were previously unknown to chemists. They found 10 alkaloids in G. nivalis, a bulbous plant that flowers in the snows of midwinter, and seven from the related G. elwesii species, which originates in the Caucasus.

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