Abstract: To study the content variation of chemical composition and best processing time for Polygoni Multiflori Radix.The content of Polygoni Multiflori Radix component with 6 different processing times were determined by HPLC and contrasted with market sale system.Fingerprint similarity analysis,cluster analysis and partial least squares regression analysis were adopted to analyze experimental data.The results demonstrated that the similarity was between 0.9 and 1.0,and there was a good correlation between the samples.Based on the composition of basic characteristics,six Polygoni Multiflori Radix samples were divided into 4 classifications by cluster analysis.PLS regression analysis showed that the content of stilbene glucoside and resveratrol had major differences at different processing times.4h was the best processing time.This study provided reference for quality control and further study of Polygoni Multiflori.

Key words: Polygon multiflora, processing time, similarity analysis, cluster analysis, partial least squares analysis