Abstract: In order to distinguish 8 kinds of carnation, 40 samples were studied by fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy combined with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The result showed that, the infrared spectra of 8 kinds of carnation were similar, but significant differences in wave-numbers and absorption intensities of peaks were observed in the range of 1800-700 cm^-1. The second derivative spectra in the range of 1800-700 cm^-1 were selected to perform principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The contributing rates of the first three principal components had reached 96.2%. The classification accuracy of PCA and HCA was 95% and 100%, respectively. It is demonstrated that fourier transform infrared spectroscopy combined with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) could be used as a means for the identification of different carnation varieties.