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Salvia deserta SCHANG.(Lamiaceae) is a plant grown in Xinjiang province in China, and its dried roots are called Xinjiang-Danshen. This plant has not been used as a medicine or a food, but recently it was reported that Xinjiang-Danshen is mixed in Dashen (roots of S. miltiorhiza BUNGE), a well-known Chinese crude drug, at Xinjiang province when latter was in short supply. We examined the constitutents of the roots of S. deserta (Xinjiang-Danshen) and identified a new caffeic acid trimer [salvianolic acid K (1)], along with two known caffeic acid dimers [salviaflaside (2), rosmarinic acid (3)], a known caffeic acid tetramer [lithospermic acid B (4)], seven known abietane-type diterpenes [6, 7-dehydroroyleanone (5), royleanone (6), taxodione (7), ferruginol (8), 7-O-methylhorminone (9), 7-O-acetylhorminone (10), horminone (11)], and a known steroid [daucosterol (12)]. Five of the diterpenes (5, 6, 9-11) were" royleanones" and the main caffeic acid derivative was the trimer 1. These differed from the constituents of roots of S. miltiorhiza, which contains" tanshinones" as diterpenes and magnesium lithospermate B as the main caffeic acid derivative. Thus, the mixing of Xinjiang-Danshen with Danshen is not appropriate and two should be considered different drugs.