Steroid saponins have been identified inAgapanthus species (Alliaceae or Liliaceae) e.g. Agapanthus africanus (Singh et al., 2007),Agapanthus inapertus (Liliaceae) (Yokosuka and Mimaki, 2007) and Dichelostemmamultiflorum (Inoue et al., 1995b). Yuccagenin (1) and agapanthagenin were tentativelyidentified from the rhizomes of Agapanthus umbellatus (Cyriac et al., 1972). Tigogenin (2),neotigogenin (3) and other steroid sapogenins were isolated from Tristagma uniflorum(Brunengo et al., 1985).
The presence of phytoecdysteroids (e.g. 20-hydroxyecdysone), hasbeen reported in the following Agapanthus species (Alliaceae): Agapanthus campanulatusssp. angustifolius, Agapanthus caulescens ssp. angustifolius, Agapanthus coddii andAgapanthus inapertus ssp. hollandii (Savchenko et al., 1997).A dimeric dihydrochalcone (4) has been isolated from the roots of Agapanthus africanus(Kamara et al., 2005).
Five acylated anthocyanins (four delphinidin and one cyanidinglucosides) were identified from the blue-purple flowers of Tritelia bridgesii (Toki et al.,1998). Two sulphur compounds viz. 2,4,5,7-tetrathiaoctane-2,2-dioxide and 2,4,5,7tetrathiaoctane were characterized from Tulbaghia violacea (Burton and Kay, 1992).
The cytotoxicity of the steroidal glycosides from Agapanthus inapertus against HL-60human promyelocytic leukemia cells, has been evaluated (Yokosuka and Mimaki, 2007).