The early maturing peach (‘Zaomei’,‘Chunlei’) and red leaf peach (‘Tsuku-ba-5’,‘Rutgers redleaf’) were used as materials.The changes of leaf color and pigment composition in four varieties of peach were studied from May to September and the different red leaf phenomenon mechanism between early maturing peach and red leaf peach was investigated.The results indicated that:(1)The leaves of red leaf peach appeared “turing green” phenomenon in late May.The chromatic component a^* became from positive to negative.The leaves of early maturing peach turned to red from green after the fruits were harvested in June and the chromatic component a^* became bigger.(2)There were 5 anthocyanins were tentatively identified,early maturing peach contained three kinds anthocyanins and red leaf peach contained four kinds anthocyanins.The main anthocyanins were cyanidin-3-O-glucoside(Cy3G) and cyanidin-3-rutinoside.The kind of anthocyanin did not change much but the pigment contents showed significant difference during the leaf color process.(3)The multiple linear regression analysis showed that chromatic component a^* of red leaf peach leaves positively correlated with the contents of Cy3G and chromatic component a^* of early maturing peach leaves positively correlated with cyanidin-3-rutinoside.The chromatic component a^* negatively correlated with Ant/Chl.The research showed cyanidin is the material basis that the leaf showed red.Not the different kinds of anthocyanins but the content of anthocyanins that cause different red leaf phenomenon mechanism.