Cirsiumaldehyde from Gastrodia elata

In the course of continous work on tubers of Gastrodia elata, a new constituent was isolated from the ethyl acetate soluble fraction prepared from the methanol extract. The structure of the compound was identified as ${\alpha},{\alpha}'-[bis-2-(5-carboxaldehydo)furanyl]-dimethyl$ ether from the elemental analytical and spectroscopic data. This compound was once isolated from Cirsium chlorolepis and named as cirsiumaldehyde. This is the first furan type compound isolated from Gastrodia elata.