S-Adenosyl-L-methionine decarboxylase (SAMDC) is a key enzyme in the polyamines biosynthesis, thus is essential for basic physiological and biochemical processes in plant. In the present study, a full length cDNA of DoSAMDC1 gene was obtained from symbiotic germinated seeds of an endangered medicinal orchid species Dendrobium officinale, using the rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE)-PCR technique for the first time. The full length cDNA was 1 979 bp, with three open reading frames, i.e. tiny-uORF, small-uORF and main ORF (mORF). The mORF was deduced to encode a 368 amino acid (aa) protein with a molecular mass of 40.7 kD and a theoretical isoelectric point of 5.2. The deduced DoSAMDC1 protein, without signal peptide, had two highly conserved function domains (proenzyme cleavage site and PEST domain) and a 22-aa transmembrane domain (89-110). Multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic relationship analyses revealed DoSAMDC1 had a higher level of sequence similarity to monocot SAMDCs than those of dicot. Expression patterns using qRT-PCR analyses showed that DoSAMDC1 transcripts were expressed constitutively without significant change in the five tissues (not infected with fungi). While in the symbiotic germinated seeds, the expression level was enhanced by 2.74 fold over that in the none-germinated seeds, indicating possible involvement of the gene in symbiotic seed germination of D. officinale.