The aim of this research is to provide a scientific basis for quality control of Houttuynia cordata Thunb through the analysis of the volatile components under different light intensities by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry(GC-MS) combined with chemometric methods.The volatile oils were extracted by steam distillation and analyzed by GC-MS.The similarities and differences among volatiles under different light intensities were analyzed by chromatographic fingerprint,principle component analysis and similarity evaluation.The overlapping chromatographic peaks were deconvoluted by heuristic evolving latent projections(HELP) method.The qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed by NIST standard mass spectral library combined with relevant literature and peak area normalization method.T-test was used to compare the differences of volatile constituent contents among different groups.There were some similarities and differences in volatile oil fingerprint among 3 groups under different light intensities.Totally,33 compounds were identified in the volatile oil from 3 groups,of which 26 components were common to all materials.The content of monoterpenoids had the positive correlation with light intensity,and the content of non-terpenoids had the negative correlation with light intensity.The content of sesquiterpenes had no relation with light intensity.The t-test results indicated that there was significant difference in the content of some common compositions.The content of decanoyl acetaldehyde and 2-undecanone in group with full light were significantly lower than the other two groups with shading.The results suggested that moderate shading was beneficial to the improvement of content of effective components in Houttuynia cordata Thunb volatile.The type and content of volatile components in Houttuynia cordata Thunb were closely related to the growth conditions.