Due to their good safety,strong antibacterial property and abundant resources，natural botanical food preservatives have become one of the attractive research fields in food preservation. The variety, antibacterial effect and mechanism of several kinds of botanical food preservatives and their application in food preservation were systematically introduced. The botanical preservatives include proteins,peptides, polysaccharides and flavonoids, polyphenols, terpenes, essential oils and enzymatic hydrolysates in some plant materials themselves. Although many fruit in research of botanical food preservatives have been achieved, some problems, such as identification of antimicrobial active constituents，dosage-effect, synergistic effects between different antimicrobial active components and the mechanism, risk analysis and so on, still existed. Some suggestions about research, development and application of botanical food preservatives were put forward.