Abstract: Rainier sweet cherry was used as test material. Using the peach genome to design primers，the full-length sequences of two genes whose ORF were 519 bp and 516 bp encoded 172 and 171 amino acids respectively. They had the conserved PEBP domain and 9 substrate binding sites，and were in line with the typical characteristics of TFL1 gene family，which named PaTFL1a and PaTFL1b respectively. Asurvey on 3，4-year old hybrid offspring of Rainier × 2121 was made. Its first flower node was 28.72 ± 1.34，the juvenile span was（63.33 ± 3.19）cm. The qRT-PCR analysis on the shoot apical meristem from 3，4-year old hybrid offspring of Rainier × 2121 showed that the relative expression quantity of PaTFL1a and PaTFL1b in juvenile zone was much higher than that in adult zone. The relative expression quantity of them were increased with the nodes increasing in adult zone. In shoot apical meristem from 1–4-year old hybrid offspring of Rainier × 2121，the relative expression quantity of two genes were reduced by the ages of trees and branches. Therefore，PaTFL1a and PaTFL1b genes may be associated with the sweet cherry stage transformation. In the leaves of 30th node，the relative expression quantity of PaTFL1a did not change by age，while the relative expression quantity of PaTFL1b was consistent with apical meristems，and it can be used as a convenient detection marker for the stage transformation of Rainier.

Key words: sweet cherry, TFL1 family gene, flower formation, stage transformation