Abstract

The fruit of Rosa L. plants in Xinjiang has great medicinal and edible value and are rich in nutrients. This study aimed to investigate the elemental characteristics of rose hips obtained from different Xinjiang regions. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to determine the contents of K, Na, Ca, Mg, Al, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Se, Sr, Cr, As, Cd, Pb, and Hg in Xinjiang rose hips. Chemometric methods, including radar plot analysis, correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and cluster analysis (CA), were used to evaluate the results of elemental analysis. The results showed that the linearity, limits of detection (LOD) (0.01–40.33 μg/L), limits of quantification (LOQ) (0.05–134.45 μg/L), precision (0.72–2.23%), stability (0.84–2.85%), and recovery (91.81–105.57%) of the ICP-MS method met the requirements. The contents of toxic elements Pb (0.00–0.65 mg/kg), Cd (0.01–0.12 mg/kg), As (0.03–0.49 mg/kg) and Hg (0.01–0.11 mg/kg) were under the prescribed safety limits. The elemental distributions of 15 batches of Xinjiang rose hips were similar, and different degrees of correlation were found among the elements. Some samples were of higher quality than the others based upon comprehensive PCA scores. The Xinjiang rose hips were divided into three categories by cluster analysis. Xinjiang rose hips are a potential source of beneficial elements for the human body.