Preferential flow is the ordinary phenomenon of rapid and non-equilibrium transport of water and solutes occurring in most soil. It causes latent pollution of ground and surface waters and affects runoff yield and flow concentration. This paper studies preferential flow for a dark coniferous ecosystem in the upper reach area of the Yangtze River, establishes a classification for the preferential flow and discusses types of preferential flow with a soil column experiment using a homemade apparatus and dye-tracer analysis. The preferential flow is mainly unsaturated gravitational flow in the upper layer of the slope deposit for mature forest soil, which is dominated by a wetness front, and the flow gradually transforms to macroporous flow as the soil layer deepens. The observed preferential flow in the young, middle-aged and over-mature forests that have grown on glacial lateral moraines is macroporous flow. The purpose of this research is to analyze systemically the behavior of soil water movement for a dark coniferous forest ecosystem in the upper reach area of the Yangtze River and to provide a theoretical basis for effective watershed management.