Phosphorus removal and is mechanisms by horizontal subsurface(HSSF) constructed wetland to treat simulated runoff under stochastic inflow condition have been investigated based on an experiment study. The results indicate that under stochastic inflow condition and with constant inflow rate of nominal hydraulic retention time of 36 h, the removal rate of the experimental HSSF constructed wetland for total phosphorus(TP) and total phosphorus(DTP) are 59.3% and 29.8％ respectively, and the yearly removal load for TP and DTP are 13.826 and 3.310 g·m-2·a-1 respectively. Removal of phosphorus by macrophytes assimilation is 1.816 g·m-2·a-1, which makes up 13.2％ of the TP removal and 54.85％of the TDP removal in the constructed wetland. It is indicated that macrophytes assimilation is not the main mechanism for the removal of total phosphorus while it has significant effect on the removal of dissolved phosphorus. The main mechanism for phosphorus removal by the constructed wetland are phosphorus retention in sediments accumulated in the substrates and adsorption by the substrates. The yearly phosphorus retention in sediments accumulated in the substrates is 5.372 g·m-2·a-1, which contributes to 38.9% of the total phosphorus removal. And yearly phosphorus adsorption by the substrates is 6.640 g·m-2·a-1 , which contributes to 48.0% of the total phosphorus removal.