The objective of this study is to investigate the bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity of coffee and tea mangrove (locally known in Indonesia) produced from the fruit of Rhizophora stylosa. Furthermore, three raw materials of coffee mangrove were also investigated to clarify their potencies. The crude extracts of five samples were subjected to antioxidant assay using DPPH. The results show that the extract of tea mangrove has the strongest activity; then, it was successfully fractionated using different polarity of solvents and yielded acetone and methanol fractions that had high antioxidant activity. The acetone fraction was purified and gave fractions A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, and A6, but only A2 and A3 indicated antioxidant activity and, therefore, they were subjected to further purification. Fractions A3 (caffeine) and A2 gave AS1 (N,N-dimethyl-L-alanine), AS2 (quercetin-3-O-galactopyranoside), AS3 (dodecanoic acid), and AS4 that had the similar 1 H-NMR spectrometric results with AS2, while the methanol fraction did not exhibit clear peaks on the chromatogram by HPLC. Therefore, the precipitation method was conducted to purify this fraction, and the precipitate was analyzed by NMR spectra. The results from 1 H and 13 C NMR indicate that this fraction is a typical polymer of condensed tannins, containing procyanidin and prodelphinidin units.

A butt-rot disease of sugi Cryptmeria japonica D. Don wood has recently increased in reforested areas, but its damage level seems to depend on the clone variety. Aya sugi is susceptible to the butt-rot disease, but, Yabukuguri sugi, Measa sugi, and Yanase sugi are relatively resistant to it. The latter three showed relatively higher contents of methanol extractives and quite different constitution of norlignan compared to the former. Main norlignans from the latter three are agatharesinol and sequirin C whose contents are thought to be crucial for the resistance against buttrot disease of sugi wood. Antifungal tests of the extractives against the wood-rot fungi isolated from sugi butt-rot woods confirmed the importance of the methanol extractives and these norlignans.

To clarify the causal fungus of butt rot disease of Cryptomeria japonica Sugi , we isolated basidiomycetous fungi from decayed stumps in 12 plantations 40 to 83 years old in the Aso district, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, and characterized two major fungi isolated. In the plantations studied, eight kinds of basidiomycetes having different morphological characteristics were isolated from rotted stumps, two of which were the major fungi. Basidiomycete-A was isolated at a relatively high frequency only in one plantation at Minami-Oguni. On the other hand, Basidiomycete-B was isolated at a high frequency in all plantations surveyed, which suggested that this fungus was widely distributed throughout the Aso district. The wood block decay test confirmed that both Basidiomycete-A and-B have ability to decay wood block. From the results, we concluded that Basidiomycete-A and/or-B were responsible, at least partly, for butt rot disease of C. japonica in the Aso district.

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