Abstract: High performance liquid chromatography was used to measure anthocyanin aglycone compositions in Lycium ruthenicum Murray from different regions. It was observed that Lycium ruthenicum Murray has most all the anthocyanidin in nature, with petunidin having the highest level about 5 776.42-14 858.52 mg/kg, indicating Lycium ruthenicum Murray has good nutritional value and biological activity. In addition, the contents of anthocyanin aglycone varied greatly due to different geographical origins, suggesting that anthocyanin aglycone compositions can be used to distinguish Lycium ruthenicum Murray from different geographical origins using multivariate statistical analysis which showed a recognition ability of 100.0% and a prediction ability of 100.0%. The results showed that analysis of anthocyanin aglycone compositions combined with principal component and linear discriminant analysis could be a good method to trace the geographical origin of Lycium ruthenicum Murray.

Key words: Lycium ruthenicum Murray, anthocyanin aglycones, multivariate statistical analysis, tracing geographical origins