This volume contains reviews presented at the 31 st annual meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America, held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado on June 22-26, 1991. This symposium, entitled Phenolic Metabolism in Plants, celebrated the origin of this society as the Plant Phenolics Group of North America; the first symposium, entitled Biochemistry of Plant Phenolic Substances, was also held at Fort Collins from August 31 to September 1, 1961. A brief history of the Society is presented in Chapter 12 by Stewart Brown, one of the original founders of the Society. We dedicate this volume to Hans Grisebach, 1926-1990, Professor of