Abstract: In order to study the cold resistance of ornamental bamboo species which have been introduced in Hunan, we choose 13 kinds of ornamental bamboo as the experimental materials and measured chlorophyll content, malondialdehyde content, relative electric conductivity, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase activity and proline content under natural winter to study their cold resistance. The results indicated that with the decrease of air temperature in winter, the chlorophyll content among the 13 species and among different months had significant differences. Except Pleiloblastus kongosanensis f. aureostriaus, SOD and CAT activities and free proline content in leaves of the rest 12 bamboo species increased, while MDA content and the relative electric conductivity increased slightly. The 6 physiological parameters in the 13 dwarf ornamental bamboo species had significant correlation (P＜0.01). Through factor analysis, cold resistance of the 13 bamboo species was in the order from strong to weak as Indocalamus decorus (92.64), I. hunanensis (89.08), Sasaella glabra f. albo- striata(86.66), I. longiauritus (86.56), P. gramineus (85.87), Hibanobambusa tranguillans f. shiroshima (85.04), Sasa phymaea(85.03), Pseudoasa japonica var. tsutsumiana(83.88), I. latifolius(82.73), S. auricoma (82.53), S. fortunei(81.60), Shibataea chinensis (80.18), and P. kongosanensis f. aureo-striatus(62.67), and the result was consistent with the morphological observations. Continuous low temperature had strong influence on the growth of P. kongosanensis f. aureostriatus. The results showed that all bamboo species except P. kongosanensis f. aureostriatus could be planted in Hunan Province.