Halenia elliptica D.Don belonged to the Gentianaceae family is commonly used as a Tibetan medicinal herb in the treatment of hepatitis and cholecystitis.It was reported for the first time that five xanthones isolated and identified from Halenia elliptica had vasodilatory action on isolated rat coronary arteries.The results showed that Halenia elliptica had cardiovascular activities and xanthones were vasoactive substances with vasodilation effect.Among these xanthones, the content of 1-hydroxy-2, 3, 5-trimethoxy-xanthone (HM-1), 1-hydroxy-2, 3, 4, 7-tetramethoxy-xanthone (HM-2), 1-hydroxy-2, 3, 4, 5-tetramethoxy-xanthone (HM-3) were high, therefore it is the metabolic transformation of HM-1, HM-2, HM-3 and 1, 7-dihydroxy-2, 3, 4, 5-tetramethoxy-xanthone (HM-4) in vitro through the microsome incubation system that were studied to explore the metabolic characteristics.In this study, high performance liquid chromatography coupled to ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LCMSn-ESI-IT-TOF)was applied for the separation and identification of metabolites of four xanthones.