Chemical Differentiation of Dendrobium officinale and Dendrobium devonianum by Using HPLC Fingerprints, HPLC‐ESI‐MS, and HPTLC Analyses

The stems of Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo (Dendrobii Officinalis Caulis) have a high medicinal value as a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Because of the limited supply, D. officinale is a high priced TCM, and therefore adulterants are commonly found in the herbal market. The dried stems of a closely related Dendrobium species, Dendrobium devonianum Paxt., are commonly used as the substitute; however, there is no effective method to distinguish the two Dendrobium species. Here, a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was successfully developed and applied to differentiate D. officinale and D. devonianum by comparing the chromatograms according to the characteristic peaks. A HPLC coupled with electrospray ionization multistage mass spectrometry (HPLC‐ESI‐MS) method was further applied for structural elucidation of 15 flavonoids, 5 phenolic acids, and 1 lignan in D. officinale . Among these flavonoids, 4 flavonoid C‐glycosides were firstly reported in D. officinale , and violanthin and isoviolanthin were identified to be specific for D. officinale compared with D. devonianum . Then, two representative components were used as chemical markers. A rapid and reliable high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method was applied in distinguishing D. officinale from D. devonianum . The results of this work have demonstrated that these developed analytical methods can be used to discriminate D. officinale and D. devonianum effectively and conveniently.