Abstract:Traditional experience calls for the skinning of Radix Adenophorae. Depending on the chemical compositions, this paper presents a comparative study on the skin, the radix with skin and the skinned radix. The experimental results show that the contents of β-sitosterol, saponins, amino acids and trace elements are highest in the radix with skin, and that the radix with skin and the skinned radix are similar in the contents of polysaccharldes.