Abstract
Species of the genus Iris (Iridaceae) have a long history of traditional medicinal use in many places of the world, and are used in the treatment of cancer, inflammation, bacterial and viral infections. Iris plants have been previously recog- nized as rich sources of secondary metabolites, which mainly belong to flavonoids, triterpenoids, benzoquinones and stilbenes. As the predominant component, flavonoids have been frequently reported. This paper describes 65 triterpenoids including iridals which is a kind of unusual triterpenoids isolated from various Iris species, 21 benzoquinones and 9 stilbenes from 21 Iris species since 1982, and the details of their source, structure are given. And the possible biogenetic ways of iridals are also presented. Moreover, many of these compounds exhibited anticancer, antimalarial, ecdysteroid antagonist, antioxidant, enzyme inhibitor, antiulcer properties.
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