Department of Chemistry, Calcutta University Post Graduate Centre, Agartala-799 004 Manuscript received 24 August 1987, accepted 22 December 1987 As a part of our programme to explore the herbal drugs from Indian medicinal plants, we chemi-cally investigated an endemic herb of Tripura, Spilanthes paniculata Wall. ex DC1. In earlier communication we reported2 the presence of amino acids in the plant. Now we report the fatty acid composition in the aerial parts of the plant. Aerial parts of the

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... ant, S. paniculata (collected from the area of greater Agartala in September 1985) were air-dried, milled and it (1 kg) was extracted with petrol (b.p. 60 - 80°) in a Soxhlet for 48 h. The petrol extract was concentrated to a gummy residue (6.5 g). The crude residue (6.0 g) was chromatographed through a silica gel column (60 120 mesh). The latter fraction of petrol eluate and earlier fraction of petrol - benzene (9 : 1) eluate on evaporation of solvent afforded an oily residue (1.5 g). The chemical characteristics of this oil were determined by the usual methods : iodine value (Wifs/30 min), 24.5 ; saponification equivalent (0.5 N alcoholic KOH), 191.5. The oil (1.0 g) was saponified with methanolic 1 N KOH (25 ml) for 2 h in an atmosphere of N.. The solvent Me0H was removed under reduced pressure and the residue diluted with H.O. The unsaponifiable matter was recovered by extracting the aqueous layer with ether. The ether layer was washed with H2O, dried with anhydrous Na9SO4, and evaporated to get a residue (0.3 g). The mixture of fatty acids was obtained by acidification of the aqueous layer with dilute HCl to pH 2- 3 followed by extraction with solvent ether. The ether layer was washed, dried in the usual manner and evaporated to get an oil of fatty acids (0.6 g). CH.N, in the usual mann [...]