Objective: To provide scientific basis for quality evaluation of Chinese medicinal herb Euonymus alatus by studying the identification of morphological and histological characteristics

and setting up qualitative and quantitative methods for analyzing the characterized components of E. alatus. Method: Focusing on ten different sources of E. alatus

the paraffin section and photomicrographic techniques were used to describe microscopic characters. The content of moisture

ash

solvent extract was determined according to Chinese Pharmacopoeia (Ed. 2010) methods. The silica gel TLC identification of E. alatus was performed by using naringenin as a reference substance. The content of total flavonoids and naringenin was also determined by UV-spectrophotometry and HPLC respectively. Result: The microscopic characters of ten different sources of E. alatus were basically the same pattern without striking differences. The content of moisture was 13.8%±0.9%

aqueous extracts 5.9%±0.5%

alcoholic extracts 4.7%±0.5%

total ash 8.4%±1.8%

and acid-insoluble ash 2.9%±1.0%. The developed TLC spots were quite clear

and a red spot obtained with the given samples all corresponded in position and color to the spot obtained with the reference naringenin in the chromatogram. The content of total flavonoids was 2.7%±0.7%

and naringenin 0.006%±0.005%. Conclusion: All these data mentioned above can be used as the reference standards for evaluating quality of E. alatus.