Purgative activity and principals of the fruits of Rosa multiflora and R. wichuraiana.

Pseudocarps or seeds of Rosa multiflora, crude drug "Eijitsu" have been used as purgative in Japanese traditional medicine. R. wichuraiana was generally thought to be able to substitute for the plant. The n-butanol fractions of both plant seeds were tested on purgative activities with mice, and the values of the 50% effective dose (ED50) were 5.6 g/kg as the seed weight for R. multiflora and 57 g/kg as the seed weight for R. wichuraiana. From pseudocarps of R. multiflora, a new purgative compound, multinoside A acetate, was isolated, and its ED50 value was tested to be 150 mg/kg (77-291 mg/kg, 95% confidence limit). The other isolated compounds were three known quercetin glycosides, quercetin 3-O-xyloside, isoquercitrin and hyperin. From pseudocarps of R. wichuraiana, three quercetin glycosides, isoquercitrin, hyperin and quercetin 3-O-beta-D-glucuronide were isolated similarly, but no purgative components of R. multiflora were detected.