Abstract: Vinca major cv. Variegata and Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ grown in pots were studied to understand their salt tolerance and differences when they were treated with NaCl solutions. Indexes including shoot growth and relative growth increament, free proline and MDA content, POD and SOD activities in the leaves were analyzed in the experiment. The results show that with the increase of salinity, the shoot growth of the two tested plants kept decreasing gradually, the average relative shoot growth of V. major cv. Variegata was higher than that of L. nummularia ‘Aurea’, the proline content of both species increased, and the MDA content and SOD activities of both species increased at the beginning and decreased afterwards, but the increased range of L. ‘Aurea’ was wider than that of V. major cv. Variegata, POD activity of L. nummulari ‘Aurea’ remained almost unchanged in all of the treatments while that of V. major cv. Variegata had a trend to increase firstly and then to decrease. According to the indexes analyzed in the paper and the morphological properties observed in the field, V. major cv. Variegata had a higher salt tolerance ability than L. nummularia ‘Aurea’ and both species can grow regularly in the soil with salinity under 4 mg• g^-1 .

Key words: groundcover plant, salt stress, shoot growth, proline, MDA, SOD, POD