Abstract:In order to compare the difference of volatile components in cut flowers of diploid and tetraploid Hedychium coronarium, the types of volatile components released from cut flowers were determined by headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) at initial opening, blooming and early decay stages. The relative content of each component was determined by the peak area normalization method, and the orthogonal partial least quadratic discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) model was established for principal component analysis and variable importance projection (VIP) analysis. The results showed that there were 63 terpenoids, 40 phenylpropanoids, and 22 fatty acid derivatives identified from the cut flowers. The relative content of terpenoids was higher than that of the other components. The total volatile mass of tetraploid flowers was significantly higher than those of diploids at initial opening and blooming stages. The difference of volatile components between diploid and tetraploid groups was obvious, and the difference within the two ploid groups was within the normal range. About 63.7% representative characteristics of volatile compounds were clustered. The variance analysis of the volatile compounds showed that the dominant and minor compounds contributed to the difference between the diploid and tetraploid. During blooming and early decaying stages, α-ocimene was the dominant component of tetraploid with the highest relative content, while β-ocimene was the dominant component with the highest relative content in diploid and significantly more than that in tetraploid. The common dominant components and contributions of diploid and tetraploid were caryophyllene, linalool, cineole, α-farnesene, and methyl benzenecarboxylate. Therefore, the types and total contents of volatile components increased with quadrupling process, and the types and contents of volatile components at different periods of the same ploidy were also different. The main volatile components of H. coronarium were terpenes.