Four pigments have been isolated from Gentiana bellidifolia and the structures of three shown to he I, VI and VII.XANTHONES previously isolated from species of the genus Gentiana include gentisin' (C,,H,,O,) and isogentisin (q,H,,O,). 2 These have been shown by synthesis to be 1 ,?dihydroxy-3-methoxy-xanthonti and 1 ,3-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-xanthone4 respectively. The isolation of corymbiferin (&H,O,) from corymbr@ra was reported in 19W but structural investigations failed to reveal the oxygenation pattern.In the present investigation xanthone pigments from MZidifoW have been studied. Ethanol extraction of root material followed by acid hydroIysis of the extract gave a mixture which was separated by repeated chromatography on silica ge1 to give four yellow, pigments, A, B, C, and D, each in about 0.3% yield. All four were provisionally assigned xanthone structures on the basis of their typically xanthone-like UV (Table 1) and IR absorption spectra (cf. refs 7 and 8).