Chemical constituents from leaves of Evodia lepta.

To explore the alternative material for the stems of Evodia lepta used in clinic, the leaves extract of E. lepta was chemically investigated by silica gel, Sephadex LH-20, ODS column chromatographies, and preparative HPLC and the structures of the compounds were identified mainly by spectroscopic methods. Ten known compounds 4-hydroxy-4, 7-dimethyl-1-tetralone (1), (6R, 7E) -4, 7-megastigmadien-3, 9-dione (2), 4-megastigmen-3, 9-dione (3), formononetin (4), daidzein (5), oroxylin A (6), wogonin (7), 5, 7-dihydroxy-3, 4'-dimethoxyflavone (8), N-trans-coumaroyltyranine (9) and (E) -p-hydroxycinnamic acid (10), have been obtained and identified. All these compounds were isolated from this species for the first time. The results revealed that there is a considerate chemical difference between the stems and leaves of E. lepta.