<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>A fast method for simultaneous determination of five compounds (one coumarin, two alkaloids and two bibenzyls) in<jats:italic>Dendrobium</jats:italic>spp. using pressurized liquid extraction and ultra‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with photo diode array detection was developed. The separation was performed on an Acquity UPLC BEH C<jats:sub>18</jats:sub>column (50 mm×2.1 mm id, 1.7 μm) with gradient elution of phosphate buffer (pH=7.1, 20 mM) and acetonitrile within 6 min. The method was validated for linearity, LOD and LOQ, precision and accuracy. All calibration curves showed good linearity (<jats:italic>R</jats:italic><jats:sup>2</jats:sup>≥0.9999) within test ranges. The overall intra‐ and inter‐day variations (RSDs) of five analytes were less than 2.5%, and the detection recoveries were between 95.6 and 102.3%. The developed method was successfully applied to quantitative analysis of five investigated compounds in different species of<jats:italic>Dendrobium</jats:italic>. The results showed that there were great variations of their contents, though all these materials were officially used as Chinese herb,<jats:italic>Shihu</jats:italic>. In addition, the chromatographic fingerprints of<jats:italic>Dendrobium</jats:italic>spp. were also investigated.