A mixture of two compounds with potent antiplasmodial activity in vitro against the W2 strain of Plasmodium falciparum (half maximal inhibitory concentration, 1.12 μg/mL) was obtained in a previous investigation of the CH2Cl2-MeOH extract of the seeds of Salacia longipes var. camerunensis. Separation by column chromatography led now to the isolation of salaterpene E ( 1) and (1 R,2 R,4 S,5 S,6 R,7 R,9 S,10 R)-2-acetoxy-1,6,9-tribenzoyloxy-4-hydroxy-dihydro- β-agarofuran ( 2). The structure of 1 was elucidated by spectroscopic analysis, and its absolute configuration was established unambiguously by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Also the absolute configurations of the recently described salaterpenes A ( 2a) and D ( 2b) were determined by this method using the anomalous scattering of the oxygen atoms only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]