Abstract: The essential oil of Huai chrysanthemum was extracted by the method of steam distillation and optimized by response surface. Based on single factors including water addition amount,distillation time and soak period,the response surface method was used to optimize the extraction process conditions of Huai chrysanthemum essential oil,and the optimal extraction process conditions were explored. The results showed that the influence factors on the yield were as follows:Distillation time>soak period>water addition amount. Under the condition of 693 mL water addition amount,8.45 h of distillation and 9.7 h of immersion,the extraction rate of Huai chrysanthemum essential oil was 0.507%,whose relative error was 0.59% between predicted optimum yields 0.51%. Moreover,it was obvious to observe the model were favorable fitted with the actual value due to its t-test result which was not significant(P>0.05). The optimized extraction conditions of essential oil from Huai chrysanthemum by single factors and response surface methodology would be reasonable and reliable with certain theoretical guiding significance for the extraction of Huai chrysanthemum essential oil.