In series of the the development of domestic natural products, the studies were conducted to evaluate the pharmacologically active substances of the roots of Pursatilla koreana, which is a specific plant, widely distributed in this country and known to be effective as antiinflammatory, hemostatic and antidysentric agents in oriental remedies. From the hydrolysis of methanol extract of the root, a triterpenic substance was isolated. It was identified as $hederagenin\;C_{30}H_{48}O_4,\; m.p.\;333^{\circ}{\sim}334^{\circ}$, by the m.m.p. with authentic sample, elemental analysis, IR, mass spectra and the other physico-chemical experimentations.

The nation-wide medicinal plants list is prepared on the basis of the collected plant samples from 22 places of 9 regions where the authors possiblely surveyed and the references on field survey reported by others. No one has reported this kind of list before and the Engler's classification system is applied in this list instead of the previously applied Nakai's classification system. And also Korean name, occurrence, distribution, medicinal part, and name of crude drugs are described in the list. According to the results of this study, the number of the natural and cultivated medicinal plants in Korea are 950 kinds presently; i.e., 719 species, 1 subspecies, 209 varieties, 1 subvariety and 20 formas which belong to 142 families and 437 genera. Out of the 950 medicinal plants, cryptogamae are 22, herbs 550 and woodies are 278. The usual common drugs are 284 kinds and the allied plants are estimated 160 kinds. And there are some folk medicines and un-utillized medicinal plants.