Leaf wax n-alkanes have been widely used to indicate past changes of hydroclimates. However, the responses of hydrogen (delta H-2(wax)) and carbon isotopes (delta C-13(wax)) of leaf wax n-alkanes to hydroclimates still remain unclear. In this study, we systematically investigated leaf wax n-alkane compounds such as n-alkanes, delta H-2(wax), and delta C-13(wax) values in modern plants throughout the spatial Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP; similar to 640, 000 km(2)) across different seasons (spring, summer, autumn), and analyzed the relationships between delta H-2(wax) and delta C-13(wax) values and hydroclimatic factors. Our results showed that, over the regional-scale CLP, the effects of plant types on leaf wax n-alkanes were prominent, but the seasonal differences became muted. These finding indicates that plant type effects should be considered, but seasonal variations might be ignored, when leaf wax n-alkanes were used to reconstruct paleohydroclimates on the CLP. Additionally, the isotopic apparent fractionations (epsilon(app) values for delta H-2(wax); epsilon(wax/bulk) values for delta C-13(wax)) also showed consistent plant type effects, highlighting differences of epsilon(app) values between dicots and monocots and discrepancies of epsilon(wax/bulk) values between C-3 and C-4 plants. Considering plant type effects, delta H-2(wax) and delta C-13(wax) values from the CLP were consistent with expectations from the global contexts, and they well responded to hydroclimatic factors (temperature and precipitation). The delta H-2(wax) values in both dicots and monocots likely responded mainly to temperature, but delta C-13(wax) values in C-3 plants primarily reflected precipitation whereas delta C-13(wax) values in C-4 plants primarily reflected temperature. These findings indicate that delta H-2(wax) and delta C-13(wax) values have great potentials as proxies for paleotemperature and paleoprecipitation on the CLP and globally.