Objective:To establish a HPLC fingerprint of iridoids and crocetin derivatives in Gardenia Fructus (GF) for the evaluation of the intrinsic quality. Method:Chromatographic separation was carried out by an Inertsil ODS-SP column (4.6 mm×250 mm

5 μm) and gradient elution was performed by mobile phase containing MeOH and 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution. The flow rate was 1.0 mL·min-1

the column temperature was maintained at 25℃

and the separated compounds were detected at a variable wavelength. The similarity evaluation software was adopted to analyze the similarities of 10 batches of commercial GF. Result:A consistent HPLC fingerprint pattern containing 20 common peaks was obtained and two major components were identified as geniposide and crocin-1

and the results of similarities of ten batches were range from 0.95 to 0.99. Conclusion:The established fingerprint method which reflect more chemical composition information of GF had good precision

reproducibility

stability

and could provide as an effective tool for the quality control of GF.