The Araceae is a large, mainly tropical family, many members of which contain bioactive substances which are often either toxic or irritating. Inflorescences frequently emit strong fragrances. The active compounds have not been adequately determined nor is the chemotaxonomy of the family very well known, except for one major study of flavonoids. Two groups of compounds of known bioactivity—alkylresorcinols and nitrogenous sugar analogues—have been sought in representative species from most of the genera in the family. Although percentage sampling was necessarily small, a few examples of species containing these substances were found and some taxonomic suggestions are made and compared with results in the literature. This survey is a basis for further work on the fam