The Thai medicinal plant Pueraria mirifica (Thai kwao keur), which has a fascinating history in the folk medicine of southeast Asia, contains the unusual estrogenic phenol miroestrol (l), first isolated more than fifty years ago. I4 The assignment of structure (without absolute configuration) was made in 1960 on the basis of X-ray diffraction~ tudies.~ The synthesis of miroestrol has remained since that time as a classical unsolved problem, despite a ...
