VIIth International Symposium on Carbohydrate Chemistry is a collection of papers discussing thio sugars, pathways of synthesis for specific polysaccharides, and the structural chemistry of plant glycuronoglycans. Other papers explain ion binding on polyuronates as alginate and pectin, the effects of acetate substituents on the conformations of di- and polysaccharides, as well as the immunochemical approaches to the structural chemistry of polysaccharides. One paper investigates the stereochemical assignment in some 2-thio sugar derivatives and the stereochemical lability of 2-thioaldoses in basic media. Another paper examines the synthetic chemistry of oligosaccharides, particularly, the synthesis of trisaccharides, one of which is a repeating unit of O-antigenic polysaccharide from Salmonella anatum. One paper notes that plant acidic polysaccharides should be classified in terms of their basal core structures to enable groupings and comparisons of glycuronoglycans isolated from various sources. Another paper shows that the structure of the carbohydrate moiety of glycoproteins points to the biological role of carbohydrate moieties as possible cell recognition signals. This collection can prove valuable for bio-chemists, cellular biologists, micro-biologists, and developmental biologists.