As important organs for plants to absorb water and nutrients, fine roots are of great significance in indicating the growth and distribution of plants. In order to better understand the variation of fine root traits across species and structural units (shrubs and trees), here we collected fine roots of woody plants in deciduous forest of the Wuyishan National Nature Reserve, Jiangxi Province, and studied their traits including root nitrogen content (RNC), root phosphorus content (RPC), root nitrogen and phosphorus ratio (RN:P), root tissue density (RTD), specific root length (SRL), and specific root surface area (SRA). We found that the mean values of chemical traits: RNC, RPC and RN:P of woody plants in the studied deciduous forest were (10.27±3.11) mg/g, (0.63±0.17) mg/g and 16.36±2.61, respectively. The mean values of morphological traits, RTD, SRL and SRA were (0.10±0.02) g/cm³, (1582.65±186.67) cm/g and (464.81±64.10) cm²/g, respectively. The SRL of shrubs was significantly higher than that of trees (P=0.033), but there were no significant differences in other fine root traits between shrubs and trees (P > 0.05). The RNC was positively correlated with RPC but negatively with RTD; the RTD was negatively correlated with both RPC and SRA; the SRA was positively correlated with both RPC and SRL. These results suggest that shrubs tend to increase the accessibility of water and nutrients by increasing its SRL to enhance its competitive advantage over trees, and that woody plants in deciduous forest make a trade-off between growth and defense by changing their SRA and RTD.