A new, simple, and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of six major xanthone glycosides in Halenia elliptica. The chemical profile of six xanthone glycosides, including 2,3,5-trimethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxyxanthone (Analyte 1), 2,3,4,5-tetramethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxyxanthone (Analyte 2), 2,3,5,7-tetramethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxyxanthone (Analyte 3), 2,3,7-trimethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxyxanthone (Analyte 4), 2,3,4,7-tetramethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxy-xanthone (Analyte 5), and 2,3,4,5,7-pentamethoxy-1-O-primeverosyloxy-xanthone (Analyte 6) were acquired by using HPLC-DAD coupled to an electrospray ionization mass spectrometer. The analysis was performed on a Kromasil C(18) column (5 microm, 250 x 4.6 mm i.d.), using acetonitrile-H(2)O (25:75, v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. Under UV detection at 260 nm, the recoveries of the analytes were in the range of 96.1-100.3%, the LODs were within 0.20 microg/mL, and all the xanthone glycosides showed good linearity (r > or = 0.9990) in a relatively wide concentration range; the intra-day relative standard deviations (%) ranged from 0.65 to 1.39%, and the inter-day RSDs% were not higher than 5%. The proposed method is suitable for quantitative and qualitative determination of the xanthone glycosides in H. elliptica.