## 1 Introduction  
Medicinal plants are significant resources for the health systems of traditional societies. Currently, approximately 70-80% of the rural population in developing countries in Asia has been found to be dependent on traditional medicine for primary health care [1]. Traditional medicine has no theoretical foundation or written sources and is transferred from one representative to another via a direct transfer of knowledge and skills within a limited population [2]. The nomadic peoples of Asia, in particular the Buryats, have had their own traditional medicine, which has existed since the 18 th century in the Transbaikal region. The interpretation of traditional Tibetan medicine that arrived with Buddhism and the influence of the experience of Buryat folk medicine significantly changed the range of medicines, which led to the emergence of the Buryat branch of Tibetan medicine [3]. The Buryat emulais dren resorted to replacing raw materials of Tibetan and Indian origin with local plants in their medical practice because herbs, leaves, and flowers often deteriorated during transportation. In the selection of substitutes, the Buryat emchi lamas mainly focused on the descriptions of plants and pictures in Tibetan treatises. It has also been implied that the medicinal properties of substitute plants are similar or sufficiently similar to those of plants described in the treatises [4].  
Species of the genus _Mertensia_ (bluebells) are one of such substitute plants in Buryat traditional medicine. Emchi lamas replaced the Tibetan raw material _Cynoglossum amable_ [PERSON] & JR Drumm with the local species _Mertensia stylosa_ and _M. serrulata_ due to their similarity. Native healers used the _Mertensia_ herb as a wound healing and antitumoragent [5]. _Mertensia_ and _Cynoglossum_ belong to the Boraginaceae family, which includes approximately 2700 species [6]. Plants of the genus _Mertensia_ grow predominantly in North America and Asia from western China to northeastern Russia [7]. _M. stylosa_ (Fisch.) DC. is a perennial plant 20-50 cm in height with one or rarely several stems, oblong basal leaves that are 2-4 cm long, densely arranged lancolate stem leaves, and umbellate inflorescence with blue-violet flowers on the pedicles. It grows in subalpine meadows along river banks and on wet rocks (Figure 1). _M. serrulata_ (Turcz.) DC. is a perennial plant 20-35 cm in height with a simple stem that is branched at the base, ovate basal leaves that are 3-5 cm on long petioles, and sessile ovate stem leaves; the inflorescence is an umbrella-shaped curl with blue flowers on the pedicles. It grows on the rocky banks of streams and rivers and high mountains at an altitude of 450-1900 m [8].  
There is no scientific information on the chemical composition of _M. stylosa_ and _M. serrulata._ The most studied species of the _Mertensia_ genus is _M. maritima_, which has a high decorative value and is eaten fresh by the IInpiat of Alaska [9]. It is known that carotenoids, phenolic acids, terpenoids, fatty acids, volatile compounds [10; 11; 12], as well as pyrrolidine alkaloids, characteristic of plant objects of the Boraginaceae family [13; 14], have been found in _M. maritima_. Because both alkaloids and phenolic compounds have a wide spectrum of biological activity [15; 16], these two classes of compounds were chosen to study the chemical profiles of the _M. stylosa_ and _M. serrulata_ herbs.  
In this work, for the first time, we performed qualitative and quantitative chromatographic analyses of pyrrolidine alkaloids and phenolic compounds in herb extracts of _M. stylosa_ and _M. serrulata_ using high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection and electrospray ionization triple quadrupole mass spectrometric detection (HPLC-PDA-ESI-tQ-MS/MS).