The mesocarp oil of the American oil palm is more unsaturated than that of the West African oil palm. Mesocarp oils obtained from F1 hybrids of these two oil palms exhibit an intermediate degree of unsaturation. Hybrid kernel oils are similar in composition to that of their West African oil palm parent, whereas kernel oils from the American oil palm are considerably more unsaturated and exhibit a unique fatty acid composition among seed fats of the Palmae family.

t3C NMR OF C2s As,2=-STEROLS IN BRASSICA OILS methyl group. Of particular interest was that, in addition to these signals, the spectrum accompany relatively weak signals at slightly lower field (0.1-0.4 ppm) of 28.7,135.9, 43.0, 33.2, and 17.9 ppm (see Fig. 1) and the chemical shifts were in complete accord with the corresponding signals for the 24~-meth~:l epimer, trans-22-dehydrocampesterol acetate (9). The 3C NMR spectra for the C2s A s,22 steryl acetates separated from 7 different seed oils were also basically the same as that from brown mustard. It is noticed here that, although the chemical shift differences of the C-26 and C-27 carbons between the C-24 epimeric pair were also observed in each spectrum, the C-27 signal in 24~3-isomer and the C-26 signal in 24a-counterpart overlapped each other. All the C2s A s'22-steryl acetates separated from eight Brassica seed oils were, therefore, regarded as a C-24 epimeric mixture. Table III shows the relative intensities of the C-16, C-22, C-24, C-25, and C-28 signals in the mixtures. All the signals in a mixture under consideration had similar relative intensities, thus suggesting approximate proportion of the epimers. The intensity measurements established that the C2s AS'22-sterol fractions in Brassica oils contain ca. 10-30% of trans-22-dehydrocampesterol along with brassicasterol.Nes et al. (10,11) have recently shown by 220 MHz IH NMR that 24-methylcholesterol fractions (C2s A S-sterols) separated from a series of Tracheophytes are always C-24 epimeric mixture with the 24~-isomer presents in about twice the concentration of the 24/3-isomer. The present study also demonstrated the co-occurrence of C-24 epi-merle 24-methylcholesta-5,E-22-dien-33-ols by 13C NMR spectroscopy, though the 243-epimer much predominant. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSSakai Spice Industry Co. provided mustard seed samples. T. Ishikawa made t3C NMR spectral measurements. T. Shigemoto, S. Ishii and H. Tarnura provided technical assistance. ABSTRACTEleven winged bean accessions from Thailand were analyzed. Oil content ranged between 15 and 18%. Oleic and linoleic acids were the major fatty acids (62.5-64.5%) together with behenic (12.6-14.4%) and lignoceric acid (2.4-2.8%). Linolenic acid level was low and traces of 15-, 17-and 21-carbon acids (saturated and un-