With global climate change, environmental stresses will become the most important issue for plant growth. Among these environmental factors, drought is the most important factor that limits photosynthesis and growth. As a result, an advancement in the current understanding of the responses of plants to drought stress has became a major target for research. Drought limits stomatal conductance, mesophyll conductance and photosynthetic metabolism, and the possibility of overexcitation of photosystemⅡ increases, and this reduces the photosynthetic rate and lead to an increase in the dissipation of absorbed energy through nonradiative processes. Therefore, photosynthesis and chlorophyll fluorescence can greatly help the differentiation of plants and the physiological understanding of the process under drought conditions. It has been proposed that the choice of a photosynthesis and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters as an indicator of plant performance under drought stress, in order to provide a technique for rapidly screening plants with different drought tolerances. The Thunbergia erecta, Tephrosia candida, Duranta repens and Pueraria lobata are common plant species used for mine vegetation restoration. A test of potting methods with water control was applied to study the photosynthetic and fluorescence characteristics of the seedlings of four plant species for mine vegetation restoration. The results were as follows: (1) The parameters of net photosynthetic rate (P_n), stomatal conductance (G_s), transpiration rate (T_r) and intercellular carbon dioxide concentration(C_i) of the four species decreased gradually with increasing drought time. After 8 days of rehydration, the P_n of the four seedling types greatly increased. The G_s and T_r of T. erecta and T. candida, and the C_i of T. candida and P. lobata returned to the controls level after rehydration with 8 days. The value of stomatal limits (L_s) of D. repens increased gradually with drought time, whereas that of other seedling types slightly decreased followed by an increase, and the L_s of the four seedling types returned to the controls level after 8 days of rehydration. (2) The chlorophyll fluorescence parameters of the excitation capture efficiency of PSⅡ (F_v'/F_m'), photochemical quantum yield of PSⅡ in the light (Yield) and apparent electron transport rate (ETR) of the four seedling types continuously decreased and significantly lower than the controls at 8th days after drought stress. After 8 days of rehydration, the F_v'/F_m' of the four seedling types waved slightly, their Yield and ETR recovered to some extent, but the Yield of P. lobata and the ETR of T. candida returned to the controls level. The non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) of the four seedling types continuously increased and it significantly greater than the control after 8 days of drought stress. The NPQ of P. lobata returned to the controls level, whereas that of the other seedling types decreased continuously after 8 days of rehydration. (4) The photosynthetic characteristics and chlorophyll fluorescence parameter of the four seedling types were evaluated with principal component analysis, indicating that the order of drought resistance of the four seedling types was T. candida > T. erecta > D. repens > P. lobata.