Centrifugal partition chromatography, Sephadex LH-20, and ion-pair re-versed-phase lc were applied in the isolation of quaternary alkaloids from two Formosan Lauraceous plants: Cryptocarya konishii and Litsea cubeba. These efforts led to the isolation of (+)-(1R,1aR)-1a-hydroxymagnocurarine [1] from C. konishii and three additional quaternary alkaloids, (−)-oblongine [3], (−)-8-O-methyloblongine [4], and xanthoplanine [5], from the stems of L. cubeba, along with (−)-magnocurarine [2]. Of these compounds, 1 and 4 are new natural products and 3 is the levorotatory optical isomer of the known (+)-oblongine. Structures were elucidated by spectral analyses. © 1993, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.