RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE：To investigate the correlation between the morphological characteristics and chemical constituents of garden ginseng （GG），mountain transplanted ginseng （MTG）and mountain-grown ginseng （MGG），so as to provide evidence for elucidating the scientific connotation of “evaluating quality from morphological characteristics ”. METHODS ：A total of 30 batches of GG ，MTG and MGG were collected. The contents of 11 saponins（ginsenoside Rg 1，Re，Rg2，F1，Rb1，Rb2，Rb3，Rc，Rd，Ro， Rf）were determined by UPLC. The determination was performed on Acquity UPLC ® BEH C 18 column with mobile phase consisted of 0.1％ Formic acid solution- 0.1％ Acetonitrile formate solution （gradient elution ）at the flow rate of 0.5 mL/min. The column temperature was set at 35 ℃. The detection wavelength was set at 203 nm，and sample size was 5 μL. The content of starch was determined by colorimetry ，and the absorbance value was measured at 559 nm with 0.5％ iodine-potassium iodide as the color reagent. SPSS 23.0 statistical software was used to perform Pearson relationship analysis for appearance characteristic indexes （number of stem scars ，rhizome length ，texture）with the contents of 11 kinds of saponins ，the content of total saponins ，the content ratio of panaxatriol saponin （PPT）/panaxadiol saponin （PPD），the content of starch. RESULTS ：The linear relationship between UPLC and colorimetry was good （r＞0.999）. RSDs of precision ，reproducibility and stability tests were all lower than 5％ . Average recoveries were 95.17％ -105.20％（RSD＜5％ ，n＝6）. Except for ginsenoside Rf ，the contents of other 10 ginsenosides were positively correlated with the number of stem scars ，so were the contents of 11 gensenosides with the rhizome length（r＞0，P＜0.05），and they were negatively correlated with the firmness of the texture （r＜0，P＜0.05）. The content of starch in P. ginseng was positively correlated with texture firmness （r＝0.95，P＜0.01）. The ratio of PPT/PPD in P. ginseng was negatively associated with the number of stem scars and the rhizome length （r＜0，P＜0.05）. CONCLUSIONS ：The number of stem scars ，the rhizome length and texture porosity of P. ginseng are positively associated with the contents of medicinal material ginsenoside；the increase of PPD content in P. ginseng was higher than that of PPT with the increase of growth years. The traditional“evaluating quality from morphological characteristics ”for P. ginseng has a certain scientific connotation ，which is more stem scars ，longer rhizome and loose texture.