Abstract: The flower petals of 12 Osmanthus fragrans cultivars in full flowering stages were used for Gas Chromatograph–Mass Spectrometer（GC–MS）analysis. The results showed that there were total 59 volatiles detected in 12 cultivars. The volatile compounds of sweet osmanthus were dominated by terpenoids. According to the sum of relative content of main volatiles compounds（> 0.05%）obtained in principal component analysis（PCA），sweet osmanthus were clustered into three groups. In yellow color flowers，O. fragrans‘Liuye Jingui’has been found to have the highest cumulative explained variance ratio，which is 56.75%；in white-yellow color flowers，O. fragrans‘Houban Yingui’has been found to have the highest cumulative explained variance ratio，which is 51.91%；and in orange color flowers，O. fragrans‘Gecheng Dangui’has been found to have the highest cumulative explained variance ratio，which is 58.88%. In addition，we selected these three representative osmanthus cultivars with different flower color and fragrance to detect the content of aroma-active compounds during flowering by Gas Chromatography–Olfactometry（GC–O）analysis. The results showed that the three cultivars of O. fragrans released aroma-active compounds with Luolan/woody/fruity odors in the initial flowering stage. From the initial flowering stage to the full flowering stage，O. fragrans‘Gecheng Dangui’with orange color released aroma-active compounds with floral odors；O. fragrans‘Houban Yingui’with white-yellow color has obvious herbal odors；and O. fragrans‘Liuye Jingui’with yellow color showed more prominent violet/woody/fruity odors. In the final flowering stage，both O. fragrans‘Gecheng Dangui’and O. fragrans‘Liuye Jingui’showed more prominent obvious green/fresh odors，while O. fragrans‘Houban Yingui’still has more obvious herbal odors，which may be the reason why people feel this fragrance releasing more constantly.

Key words: sweet osmanthus, Osmanthus fragrans, flower color, flower aroma, principal component analysis, aroma-active compounds