Growth and development of plants were always influenced by the combined effects of climate conditions accumulated in the previous periods,which was always explained by the variation of phenological characteristics of plants.With the rapidly increase of average surface temperature over the 20th century,shifts in animal and plant phenology have been widely reported in the northern hemisphere,phenology was now recognized as one of the simplest and most frequently used bio-indicators for studying the climate change.However,there are great differences in the response of plant phenology to the climate change,and which one will be the relatively sensitive meteorological factors to the phenology of plant species,to which time scale the plant species will be responded significantly is still unknown,this make it difficult to accurately predict the responding process of plant species to the climate change.Phenological data of typical herbaceous plants(Lris lacteal) and the corresponding meteorological data were both collected from the Minqin Desert Botanical Garden in 1974—2007,and phenological characteristics of this species was analyzed and its response to the accumulated precipitation and temperature in different time scales were studied.The conclusions were obtained as follows:(1) The growing season length(difference between the starting date of budding period to the ending date of wilting period) of Lris lacteal was about 201.7 days with an increasing rate of 0.8 days per 10 years,which was not statistically significant during 1974—2007(P0.1).(2) Except the starting date(which refers to the time when nearly 50% of the species have experienced a certain phenological event) of the flowering period showed an obvious delay,and was statistically significant,the starting date and the ending date(which refers to the time when most of the species have finished this event) of remaining phenophases all displayed a slight delay,and was not statistically significant.The duration period(days of difference between the starting and ending date of one phenology) of all the phenophases of Lris lacteal varied greatly in different years,in which the duration period of budding period,flowering period and fruiting period all exhibited a decreasing trend,while leafing period and wilting period both showed an increasing trend,all of which were not statistically significant.(3) The extension of growing season lengths of Lris lacteal was attributed to the combined effects of both temperature and precipitation.The starting date of phenophases of this species was greatly influenced by the accumulated temperature from the preceding 3 weeks to 3 months,which was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level,while which has no relations with the accumulated temperature in preceding 1—3 years.Some of the phenophases of this species has a slight response to the accumulated precipitation in short-term and mid-term period,but no influence was found on the accumulated precipitation in the long-term period.(4) Phenophases of Lris lacteal was not only influenced by the local climate change,but also has some relations with its water use mechanisms,climate change in the future may have an great influence on the phenological characteristics of typical herbaceous plants in this desert area.