Bone marrow cell proliferating arabinogalactan-like polysaccharide (ALR-3IIa-1-1) has been purified from rhizomes of Atractylodes lancea DC. In order to characterize the essential structure of ALR-3IIa-1-1 for expression of the activity, sequential enzymatic digestion using ego-$alpha$-L-arabinofurasidase (AFase) and ego-$eta$-D-(1longrightarrow3)-galactanase (GNase) was employed. After ALR-3IIa-1-1 was digested with the AFase, the GNase digestion cleaved only 10% and 23% of 3-linked and 3,6-branched galactose, respectively, from arabinose-trimmed ALR-3IIa-1-1 (AT-ALR-3IIa-1-1), and gave small amounts of intermediate size (AT-G-2) and shorter oligosaccharides (AT-G-3) fractions in addition to a large amount of the GNase resistant fraction (AT-G-1). When AT-G-1 was redigested gradually with the AFase and GNase, it released trace amounts of oligosaccharides in addition to a large amount of the resistant fraction. When the final enzyme-resistant fraction from AT-G-1 was digested simultaneously with both AFase and GNase, the resistant fraction was significantly degraded into two long fragments (3AT-3G-1 and 2). The mixture of digestion products from the first GNase digestion of AT-ALR-3IIa-1-1 showed a significantly decreased bone marrow cell proliferation activity to about 30% of the activity of ALR-3IIa-1-1, but the GNase resistant fraction (AT-7-1) still had significant activity. Although the second gradual enzymatic digestion of AT-G-1 showed a marginal decrease in activity, the resulting fragments (3AT-3G-1 and 2) by the final simultaneous enzymatic digestion lost most of the activity. Component sugar, methylation and FAB-MS analyses indicated that the digestion products (AT-G-21 AT-G-31 2AT-2G-2 and 2AT-2G-3) released from AT-ALR-3IIa-1-1 by the sequential enzymatic digestion contained galactose-containing oligosaccharides mainly comprising 6-linked galactose, that some of which were partially arabinosylated, and these oligosaccharides were attached to $eta$-D-(1longrightarrow3)-galactan backbone in its non-reducing terminal side as side chains.