Abstract:In order to understand the mechanism of flower colour change of Brunfelsia acuminate, the changes in composition of anthocyanins in petals were studied by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system. The results showed that the optimized HPLC system was following:the flow rate was 0.8 mL min-1, 7.5% formic acid acetonitrile as mobile phase A and 7.5% formic acid as mobile phase B; the elution program was 0 min with 8% A; 15 min with 18% A; 25 min 23% A; 45 min with 40% A and 50 min with 8% A. There were three kinds of anthocyanins, such as malvidin-3-O-glucoside chloride, petunidin-3-glucoside and delphinidin-3-glucoside in petals of B. acuminata by using the optimized system. Among them, the content of malvidin-3-O-glucoside chloride was the highest, followed by petunidin-3-glucoside and the content of delphinidin 3-glucoside was the lowest. Moreover, the contents of three kinds of anthocyanin decreased with the petal color from dark to light. Therefore, it was indicated that the coloration of B. acuminata is related to these three anthocyanins, and the malvidin-3-O-glucoside chloride plays a dominant role.