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Snow lotus herb is a collection of 40 species of geneus Saussurea 1 . This herb, grows in the mountains at heights about 2100-4100 m 2 , is frequently used as ethnomedicinal drug of Tibet 3 , Mongolia 4 and Uygur 5 . Modern pharmacological researches demonstrate that snow lotus has analgesic 6,7 , anticancer 8,9 , resist early-foetation 10,11 and free radical scavenging effects 12,13 . Pharmacological effects are closely related to chemical components. A series of active components which could provide beneficial therapeutic effects including phenolic compounds 14 , sesquiterpenes 15 , lignins 16 and polysaccharide 17 have been isolated from snow lotus.Currently, three snow lotus species including S. involucrata, S. laniceps and S. medusa are all used as an herbal drug for the treatment of inflammation and pain-related diseases which might limit their further bioactive screening and clinical popularization 8 . To solve this problem, several attempts 5,18 have been done to assess the qualitative and quantitative difference in these three related herbs using HPLC/DAD-MS and UPLC. In these studies, phenolic compounds including phenolic acids, flavonoids and lignans have been compared systemically, which gave an important clue to the quality control and use of S. involucrata, S. laniceps and S. medusa. However, one