In order to adapt to contrasting habitats plants have evolved different stategies, from changes in physiological processes to the modifications in morphological and anatomical structures. In that sense, leaf dry mass per unit area (LMA) is an important indicator of plant ecological strategies to cope with different environmental influences. The aim of this study was twofold: a) to examine variability of LMA between different European beech provenances, b) to analyze the relationship between LMA and altitude of provenances origin sites. The study was conducted in the provenance trial at Fruska Gora Mountain and involved 11 provenances originating from Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Romania and Serbia. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was provided in order to verify the significance of differences between provenances, while the linear regression analysis was applied in order to examine the relationship between LMA and provenance altitudes. The results showed the existance of statisticaly significant differences between provenances (p<0.001) in terms of LMA that are likely the results of possible different genetic constitution of investigated provenances. Likewise, we observed significant, positive relationship between LMA and altitudes of provenances origin sites (p=0.017), which pointed to strong local adaptation of provenances. The results were discussed in terms of importance of LMA for plant adaptation to environments at higher altitudes.