Multiple species of Dendrobium are widely used as Shihu, a well known Chinese herb, for medicinal purpose in China. Small molecules such as phenols, alkaloids and coumarins are obviously varied in different species of Dendrobium. But there are few reports on polysaccharides, one of major active components, from Dendrobium. In this study, polysaccharides from different species or locations of Dendrobium were compared using saccharide mapping. The results showed that polysaccharides of Dendrobium from different species or locations were obviously varied in spite of they had some similar characters, which is helpful to control the quality of Dendrobium. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.