Abstract: To detect the characteristics and practical application potential of glossy mutants in cabbage，five different glossy mutants were studied. The epicuticular wax amount over these mutants was just about 30% of their wild type. The wax crystal structure of wild type was columnar and linear，but the wax crystal structure of mutant was granular and short rod. The wax composition of wild type cabbage was mainly consisted of alkanes，alcohols，fatty acids，ketones，and aldehydes，while in the mutant there were severely lack of alkanes and ketones. We speculated that the biosynthetic pathway of alkane in the mutant was blocked，so it exhibited the glossy traits. In addition，cuticle permeability was obvious increased in glossy mutant. The results of growth curve indicated that the growth speed of mutant-1 and mutant-3 was slower than their wild type，and the plant size of mutant-1 and mutant-3 was smaller than the correspondingwild type too，but the glossy traits has no influence on the growth of mutant-2. The study on agronomic traits and heterosis of the glossy mutants showed that the color was bright green and the glossy mutants exhibited better commodity nature and the inheritance of mutant-2 was dominant. Besides，the bright green F1 cabbage has the advantage of heterosis indicating that mutant-2 possessed potential value for practical application.

Key words: cabbage, glossy mutant, microstructure, wax component, agronomic trait, heterosis