Chemical constituents from the leaves of Fraxinus hubeiensis, an endemic plant from China

Fraxinus hubeiensis is an endemic plant that only grows in China and its phytochemistry has never been fully appreciated and sufficiently studied. In the present research, a phytochemical investigation on the leaves of Fraxinus hubeiensis led to the isolation of a new carbonate derivative (10), together with eleven known compounds. Their structures were analyzed on the basis of NMR spectroscopic and data comparison with previous literature. Among them, all of the compounds were isolated from F. hubeiensis for the first time except compound 9 and this is the first report of the occurrence of compounds (2, 4, 6, 10–12) from the genus. The carbonate and triterpenoids components may serve as potential chemotaxonomic markers for distinguishing Fraxinus hubeiensis from other species in Fraxinus genus.