Abstract
THE enormous variety of constituents to be found in the essential oils of plants constitutes one of the most impressive phenomena of organic chemistry. These fragrant oils consist usually of complex mixtures of alicyclic, alicyclic, and aromatic substances. The carbon skeletons of the acyclic and alicyclic substances may be pictured as built up by the fusion of, isoprene nuclei of five carbon atoms, arranged with exceedingly few exceptions in an orderly head-to-tail, manner. This simple conception leads at once to molecular frameworks of terpenes composed of two or more of these nuclei, and forming acyclic, monocyclic, or polycyclic structures.
The Terpenes
By Dr. J. L. Simonsen Dr. J. L. Simonsen Dr. L. N. Owen. Pp. xvi + 479. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1947.) 30s. net.
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READ, J. Terpene Chemistry. Nature 160, 384 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160384a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160384a0