FOLLOWING the discovery of quinic acid in apple fruits1 it has been found in other fruits2,3 and in grass4. It was originally suggested that quinic acid might provide a link between aliphatic and aromatic metabolism in plants, and that shikimic acid might be the first stage from quinic acid in the ‘disaturation’ of the six-membered carbon ring1. However, shikimic acid could not at that time be found in apples. It was, however, isolated later from grass5 and has recently been detected in small amounts in the juice of cider apples by Phillips, Pollard and Whiting6, who used paper chromatography and a specific colour reaction. The development of the technique of gradient elution of organic acids from anion exchange resins7,8 has greatly facilitated the separation and isolation in the pure state of organic acids present in very small amount from solutions which also contain other acids in much larger quantity; by using this technique, an acid has now been found in very small amount on paper chromatograms prepared from extracts of the peel of Bramley's Seedling apples which gave a yellow to orange colour with Cartwright and Roberts reagent9 (specific for quinic, shikimic and dihydroshikimic acids6) and corresponded in RMalic values with shikimic acid. About 20 mgm. of this acid was obtained in the pure form from an extract of 300 gm. of the peel of the same apples using gradient elution (acetic acid) from ‘Dowex 1’ columns in the acetate form. The acid had a specific rotation of [α]20D =−177.5° (an authentic sample, measured at the same concentration, of shikimic acid kindly supplied by Dr. Wayne Umbreit of the Merck Institute, gave [α]0D = −177.1°). The elementary analysis gave, C, 46.9; H, 5.8 per cent; calculated for shikimic acid C, 48.3; H, 5.79 per cent. The specimen had a melting point of 182.5° C. (corrected); mixed melting point with the Merck sample of shikimic acid, 183.5° C. (corrected). It was undoubtedly shikimic acid.