Treatment of maize leaf segments from etiolated seedlings with different concentrations of sorbitol during greening decreased the fresh weight, turgid weight and dry weight significantly, being indicated by higher R squared values obtained on correlation analysis. Concentration dependent decrease in protein and RNA contents were found with increasing concentration of sorbitol. Osmotic stress affects total DNA content. Incubation of leaf segments with sorbitol decreased the total chlorophylls and carotenoids in a concentration dependent manner. Reduction in chlorophylls was to a higher extent than carotenoids with highly significant R squared value. Further, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b also decreased with increasing concentrations of sorbitol. It seems that water and metabolic status of leaf segments is less affected by osmotic stress, which is apparent from marginal decreasing effect of sorbitol on RWC, protein and RNA content. Strong correlation between sorbitol concentration and various parameters measured in dark grown maize leaf segments, with the R squared values being 0.958 with fresh weight, 0.968 with turgid weight, 0.969 with dry weight, 0.968 with total chlorophylls, 0.909 with carotenoids suggest that sorbitol induced osmotic stress has a prominent inhibitory effect on growth and chlorophyll biosynthesis in dark grown maize leaf segments.