【Objective】Recently, woody peat is widely used in horticulture, facility agriculture and soil amelioration, however, little is known about chemical composition and molecule structure of the humus it contains as the main component and ability of the substance to increase soil organic matter (SOM) in the soil. Therefore, in this research, samples were collected of woody peat (WP), two types of soils (paddy soil (PS) and black soil (BS)), two kinds of organic manure (Mix fermented organic manure (MFOM) and fermented chicken manure (FCM)), for analysis of content, micromorphological features, chemical composition, molecule structure and functional group structure characteristics of humus to evaluate differences between the substances of different sources in these indices and in ability to increase SOM.【Method】Different fractions (fulvic acid (FA), humic acid (HA) and humin (Hu))of the humus in the samples of WP, PS, BS, MFOM and FCM were extracted for analysis of concentrations of Carbon (C), nitrogen (N), hydrogen (H), sulfur (S) and oxygen (O), micromorphological features with the aid of a scanning electron microscope, and molecule structures by means of fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR).【Result】Results show that the humus content of WP approached 862.7 g·kg^-1which was 30.5~41.7 times and 4.1~5.1 times that in the soils and organic manures, respectively. The WP humus was dominated with HA, which accounted for 73.28% of the WP sample in dry weight, while the humus in PS, BS, MFOM and FCM was with Hu which accounted for less than 11.28% only of the samples in dry weight. The finding indicates that the humus in WP is more humified than that in soils or organic manure. The HA in WP was smaller in particle size than the HA and Hu in PS, BS, MFOM and FCM, which suggests that the molecules and particles on the surface of WP humus are denser in arrangement and hence lower in activity. The humus in WP, regardless of fraction was relatively high in C concentration, but lower in all the fractions in N concentration than their respective ones in PS, BS, MFOM and FCM, which led to a high, even over 100, C/N ratio, about 5~11 and 9~14 times that in the soils and organic manures, respectively. Besides, except for the HA fraction in BS, both the FA and HA fractions in WP were the lowest in H/C ratio, which suggests that the humus in WP is more condensed than that in all the others. FTIR analysis shows that the values of 2920/1 620 and 2 920/2 850 of the HA and Hu fractions in WP were much higher than that in PS, BS, MFOM and FCM, which indicates that WP humus contains more aromatic and polymethylene groups. The higher humification and condensation degrees, more compact and inert surface and more aromatic and polymethylene groups suggest that the humus in WP is more complicated in molecule structure than that in all the others, and therefore it is harder for organisms to decompose. However, according to the FTIR spectra, the FA and HA fractions of humus in WP displayed absorption peaks higher their corresponding ones in all the others at 1 720 cm^-1 and 1 420 cm^-1 featuring carboxyl C=O bonds. In addition, in the humus of WP, the HA fraction was higher in (S+O)/C ratio than that in all the others, although the Hu fraction was the lowest in (S+O)/C ratio, which suggests that the WP humus is still quite high in oxidation degree and that its oxygen functional groups have not yet been completely decomposed.【Conclusion】All the findings in this study demonstrate that WP is quite high in potential ability to raise SOM concentration in the soil. Therefore, when WP is applied into soil, it is essential to regulate the fractions in the humus to a proper ratio to reduce its particle size and polymethylene bonds, and meanwhile, to spike some biological activator and to incorporate straw into the soil, so as to stimulate organism inversion and balance WP decomposition.