Abstract: Plant functional traits can effectively reflect the plant metabolism activities, biochemical components, and nutritional absorption. This paper analyzed the plant functional traits of Carex and Potentilla around Beijing mountainous areas, and the results showed that the plant height, leaf length, leaf width, flower length, specific leaf area (SLA), and leaf total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) contents had positive correlations with each other, and the leaf thickness and leaf weight had negative correlations with the other traits. Phylogenetic information affected the plant height, leaf length, and leaf TN content. With the increase of altitude, the plant height, leaf length, leaf width, flower length, SLA, and leaf TN and TP contents decreased, while the leaf thickness and leaf weight increased. Altitude and phylogenetic information had the same effects on the functional traits of Carex and Potentilla, only the relationships between SLA and phylogenetic information had differences.

Key words: community characteristics, aquatic macrophytes, CCA., riparian zone plants, macrobenthos, environmental factors