The rearrangement product obtained by treatment of the norditerpenoid
alkaloid deltaline (1) with SOCl2 in moist benzene had been assigned s
tructure 5. This compound was also obtained by treatment of 10-chloro-
10-deoxydeltaline (4) with aqueous MeOH. However, when (4) was treated
with methanolic KOH, a novel rearranged pyrrolidine (8) was obtained.
Structures 5 and 8 for these heterolytic fragmentation products were
established by nmr spectroscopic data and an X-ray crystal structure d
etermination of 8.