Abstract:Fritillaria cirrhosa D.Don(Liliaceae, Fritillaria L.) is a perennial herb possessing important medicinal properties in its dried bulbs. However, exhaustion of the wild resources of this species was seriously occurred in recent years. In this study, potential distribution prediction and suitability evaluation of F.cirrhosa were conducted and the main influential environmental factors were determined using 108 geographic occurrence records and 16 environmental variables based on Maxent modeling and GIS (ArcGIS 9.3). Our results showed that the potential distribution area of F.cirrhosa was mainly located in the southwest of Sichuan province, the northwest of Yunnan province and the southeast of Tibet. F.cirrhosa was also fragmentally distributed in the northwest of Guizhou province and the southwest of Gansu province. Within these areas, Sichuan (Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture), Yunnan (Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture and Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture), Tibet (the districts of Nyingchi, Shannan and Xigaze) were determined as the largest highly potential distribution areas (suitability index>0.5). The Maxent modeling showed that isothermality (contribution percent, 20.2%), annual average precipitation(16.6%), altitude(14.3%), standard deviation of temperature seasonal change(14.2%), minimum temperature of January(10.9%) and soil pH(7.9%) were the main influential environmental factors that affecting the distribution of F.cirrhosa. Further analysis of niche parameters demonstrated that F.cirrhosa prefers to grow in plateau areas with low annual range of temperature and high daily range of temperature and its suitable habitat requirements were altitude around 2 500-3 500 m, annual average precipitation around 850-905 mm, minimum temperature of January around -3.5-4.7℃ and faintly acid soil (pH around 6.66). The above results will provide valuable references for the wildlife tending, the plantation regionalization, and the standard cultivation of F.cirrhosa.