Soil and water salinity is one of the biggest problems in the way of green space development in most countries in Middle East such as Iran. Changing the irrigation water source and site bed soil is too extravagant or maybe impossible. T h e re fo re, it is necessary to find and select tolerant plants for these countries. As turfgrass and ground covers are the most effective elements in parks and green spaces, it is important to find their tolerant cultivars for saline lands. Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is a common turfgrass which is used in urban landscape.According to the wide use of rye g r a s s ; the experiment was started to investigate the salt tolerance ability of five ryegrass cultivars (‘Taya’, ‘Fancy’, ‘Barrage’, ‘Yarandi’ and ‘Esquire’). Results showed that the seeds of all the cultivars used had ve ry good germination p e rcentage and ‘ Taya’ had the best seed germination percentage (‘Taya’: 98%, ‘Fancy’: 96%, ‘Barrage’: 96%, ‘Yarandi’: 94% and ‘Esquire’: 90%). However, ‘Yarandi’ had the best germination rate (time required for 50% seeds to germinate) and had the highest uniformity, i.e., the shortest total germination duration.Thereafter,‘Yarandi’ showed the best seedling vigor. In order to determinate the i n h i b i t o ry impact of salt on germination percentage, germination rate and root growth in solution culture, 30 seeds of each cultivar were sown in plastic beads which were floated on surface of 0.1 strength ‘Rorison’ nutrient solution, containing 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 200 mmol/L NaCl, along with control (deionized water), in 200 mL plastic beake r s . A completely randomized design (CRD) was used with three replicates of each treatment. After 14 days, the germination p e rcentage and rate and root length we re measured in each beaker. Data were analyzed by..

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