BACKGROUND Among active components in Rabdosia rubescens, oridonin has been considered a key component and the most valuable compound because it has a wide range of activities beneficial to human health. To produce a high-quality oridonin extract, an alternative hyphenated procedure involving an ultrasound-assisted and supercritical carbon dioxide (HSC-CO2 ) extraction method to extract oridonin from R. rubescens was developed in this study. Fictitious solubilities of oridonin in supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2 ) with ultrasound assistance were measured by using the dynamic method at temperatures ranging from 305.15 K to 342.15 K over a pressure range of 11.5 to 33.5 MPa. RESULTS Fictitious solubilities of oridonin at different temperatures and pressures were over the range of 2.13 × 10-6 to 10.09 × 10-6 (mole fraction) and correlated well with the density-based models, including the Bartle model, the Chrastil model, the Kumar and Johnston model and the Mendez-Santiago and Teja model, with overall average absolute relative deviations (AARDs) of 6.29%, 4.39%, 3.12% and 5.07%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Oridonin exhibits retrograde solubility behaviour in the supercritical state. Fictitious solubility data were further determined and obtained a good fit with four semi-empirical models. Simultaneously, the values of the total heat of solution, vaporisation and solvation of oridonin were estimated. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.