Abstract:Plants are important in landscape design, yet increasing global drought poses a serious challenge to both plants and urban botanical landscaping, making it necessary to investigate the drought tolerance of common landscape plants. In this study, threeyear- old seedlings of three common Fabaceae tree species, Robinia pseudoacacia, Styphnolobium japonicum, and Gleditsia sinensis, were subjected to a 28-day drought treatment. Their drought tolerance was comprehensively evaluated by measuring chlorophyll a content, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, catalase (CAT) activity, and peroxidase (POD) activity. Under drought stress, Styphnolobium japonicum and Gleditsia sinensis showed no significant decrease in chlorophyll a content or antioxidant enzyme activities, nor a significant increase in MDA content, suggesting relatively good drought tolerance. In contrast, Robinia pseudoacacia showed a significant decrease in antioxidant enzyme activities and a significant increase in MDA content during the drought period, suggesting weaker tolerance. According to the result of the membership function method, it was determined that among the three species, Gleditsia sinensis had the strongest drought tolerance, followed by Styphnolobium japonicum, while Robinia pseudoacacia exhibited the weakest.