Abstract: The xanthones from Swertia punicea and their cytotoxic activities were investigated in this study.The petroleum ether and ethyl acetate part of ethanol extracts from S.punicea were separated by chromatographic techniques.The structures of these compounds were identified by ¹H NMR,¹³C NMR,HSQC,HMBC and ESI-MS data,eight xanthones were isolated from this plant,they were 1-hydroxyl-2,3,5,7-tetramethoxyxanthone (1),1,2,3,4,5-pentamethoxythone (2),1-hydroxyl-2,3,4,7-tetramethoxyxanthone (3),1-hydroxyl-2,3,5-trimethoxyxanthone (4),dulcisxanthone C (5),1-hydroxyl-2,3,7-trimethoxyxanthone (6),1,5-dihydroxy-2,3-dimethoxyxanthone (7) and 1-hydroxyl-3,4,5-trimethoxyxanthone (8),all of these compounds were isolated for the first time from S.punicea.The cytotoxic activities of these compounds were also evaluated,and compound 1,4,5,7 showed good cytotoxic activities against HepG-2.

Key words: Swertia punicea, xanthone, cytotoxic activity, 2D NMR