Summary The species of the investigated grassland were confined to seven taxonomic families. 80% of the total biomass was concentrated in the family Poaceae . The concentration of various nutrients varied sharply among different taxa and the allocatioin of nutrients in the biomass of different taxonomic families was highly diverse. Sodium uptake in the studied species was rather high, presumably due to high exchangeable sodium in the soil. Various taxa differed in their strategy of expending energy for structural and non-structural tissue components. Dominants had greater structural carbohydrates while sub-ordinates had more non-structural components. The characterization of the herbage quality of some dominants showed a fairly good nutritive value suggesting their utility as forage in sodic soils.