An easily extractable polysaccharide fraction from Norwegian spruce, containing galactose, glucose and mannose residues, was subjected to partial hydrolysis. A number of oligosaccharides were isolated from the hydrolysate; among them were the 4 disaccharides and 5 of the 8 trisaccharides that should be formed from a linear gluco-mannan with [beta]-1,4-linkages and a random distribution of the hexose residues. In addition to these compounds, 6-O-[alpha]-D-galactopyranosyl- D-,ammpse (Ga[long dash]7jTl) and a trisaccharide (Ga[long dash]-[long dash]r M a / M) were also isolated, indicating that, in addition to the glucomannan, there was also present either a galactomanna of the type found in legume seeds or a galactoglucomannan.