Tissue cultures derved from the plants Rauwolfia serpentina and Catharanthus roseus have been studied for the production of therapeutic indole alkaloids (1, 2). As plant tissue and cell cultures are known to exhibit nuclear irregularities resulting on considerable variations in the formation of secondary metabolites (3), the use of multiple shoot cultures which are comparatively stable, could be considered for the production of useful plant constituents and even more important for the propagation of high yielding plants. The present report concerns the isolation and characterisation of some indole alkaloids from multiple shoot cultures of R. serpentina. The large genus Saussurea with more than 300 species (1) has been investigated chemically for acetylenes (2) and to some extend for sesquiterpene lactones. So far lactones from six species are reported (3—10). In all these cases guaianolides were isolated, especially cynaropicrin and closely related lactones. S. lappa also contains other types of sesquiterpene lactones (4). We now have studied two species from Mongolia. One of them, S. involucrata, is used in the folks medicine and it is said to have activites similar to Ginseng. The results will be discussed in this paper.