An anticoagulant was purified from corn silk which has been used in Oriental Medicine. The anticoagulant from corn silk has a molecular mass of 135 kDa, and purified by 24 folds with a recovery of 11%. It was not sensitive to heat and protease treatment. However, periodate oxidation of the anticoagulant resulted in loss of activity significantly, implying that a carbohydrate was responsible for an anticoagulant activity. Galactose, glucose, mannose, fucose, glucosamine, and galactosamine were detected after acid hydrolysis by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and Bio-LC. It was confirmed that anticoagulant had OH and NH bonds by IR, supporting that the anticoagulant is composed of neutrosugar and aminosugar. Its anticoagulating activity was measured by delay in thrombin time (TT) and prothrombin time (PT) without affecting clotting by snake venom and delay in activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT). TT was more sensitive than PT, and was delayed two and three times at the concentration of 60 and 88 nM, respectively. The anticoagulating activity was reduced in the thrombin-induced clotting assay using purified fibrinogen according to the increase of fibrinogen concentration with the apparent Ki value of 23 nM.