Specific leaf area(SLA) is an important indicator of plant function trait, reflecting resources utilization strategy during the plant growth process. The typical forest communities under four different succession stages in Changbai Mountains were selected, the SLA and its influencing factors in different stages of successions were compared. The results showed that SLA was obviously different across forest successions, and significantly increased with forest succession stages. Correlation analysis showed that SLA had significant positive correlations with elevation、slope position、soil nitrogen (with P < 0.05). Further path analysis indicated that on early stage of succession, slope position was an important factor, while Path analysis model was with low path coefficient on middle stage of succession, and the negative effect of soil N was significant on later stage of succession.