Objective: Kudzu root, fern root, lily, and yam bean are characteristic plant resources in Wuling Mountain Area, the gelatinization and instant properties of these four starches was analyzed in this study. Methods: SEM, RVA, and DSC were used to investigate the gelatinization properties of the starches, and the transparency and apparent fluidity of starch pastes was used to analysis the instant properties. Results: The granule of kudzu root, fern root, and yam bean starches showed similar morphology, most of which are spherical, but lily starch exhibited spindle-shaped morphology. The RVA results showed that the peak viscosity of lily starch was the highest [(7.00±0.03) Pa·s] among these four starches. The setback value of kudzu root starch and lily starch was more than fern root starch and yam bean starch, which indicating that kudzu root starch and lily starch was easy to retrograde. The DSC results showed that the initial gelatinization temperature of fern root starch was 59.4 ℃, which was the lowest among these starches, indicating that it was easy to gelatinize. Lily starch has the highest gelatinization enthalpy, which is 15.64 J/g, indicating that more heat was required for gelatinization. After gelatinization, the kudzu root starch paste has the best transparency with a light transmittance of 29.11%, while lily starch paste has a light transmittance of only 12.25%. Kudzu root starch paste and lily starch paste was easy to form gels, but the fluidity was poor. Conclusion: Lily starch and kudzu root starch have similar instant properties and have potential for the development of instant foods, fern root starch and cold potato starch showed a lower retrogradation value, and their paste showed better fluidity, which can be used to inhibit the retrogradation of food.