Two pots experiments were conducted in a greenhouse to test the effects of sand burial and seed size on seed germination and seedling emergence, survival and growth of Caragana korshinskii Kom., a dominant perennial sand-fixating legume shrub in Mu Us Sandland. Sand burial significantly affected seed germination, seed dormancy, and seedling emergence, survival and biomass of C. korshinskii. Percentages of seed germination and seedling emergence, survival and biomass were highest at burial depths of 0.5 to 2 cm, and they decreased with the increase in depth of sand burial to ≥4 cm. In contrast, the percentage of seed dormancy was lowest at depths of 0.5 to 2 cm, and it increased with an increase in depth from 4 to 12 cm. No seedlings emerged or survived at depths ≥12 cm. Seed size noticeably affected emergence, survival and biomass of C. korshinskii seedlings, but it did not affect seed germination. At all burial depths, germination percentages did not differed markedly among different size seeds. At depths ≤6 cm, percentages of seedlings that emerged from seeds of different sizes were not significantly different, but seedling emergence was higher from large seeds than from medium or small seeds at depths ≥8 cm. Moreover, survival and biomass of seedlings that originated from large seeds were higher than those of seedlings from medium seeds, which, in turn, were higher than those of seedlings from small seeds at each depth from 0.5 to 10 cm except at 6 or 8 cm. We speculate that tolerance to sand burial and diversity of seed size increase the fitness of C. korshinskii, which contributes to its dominance in mobile and semi-mobile sand dunes of Mu Us Sandland.