The objectives of this study were to analyze the spectral characteristics (SCs) of different composite forest stands in Alishan working circle by using four satellite images taken from SPOT in 2005. The vegetation indices were calculated from spectral data of SPOT imageries. The composite forest stands were classified into six categories, namely, natural hardwood forest, natural mixed forest, softwood plantations forest, hardwood plantations forest, plantations mixed forest and bamboo forest. To extract SCs from SPOT imageries, a processing scheme was developed, in which the method of differential sampling timings of SPOT images and spatial distribution of different forest stands were included. The results indicated that different vegetation indices gave vary degrees of accuracy, and may be used to separate the spectral characteristics of forest stands. The overall accuracy for the supervised classification was 78.44%.