The study on the relationship between temperature and vegetation in mountainous areas is reviewed in this paper. Based on the results from the laboratory experiment and the field measurement,the characteristics of the effective temperature and its measuring method are discussed from several aspects. The results show:①The effective temperature is quite sharp to characterize the temperature features for different mountainous landscapes;②the effective temperature correlates very much with the average indication value of temperature established by Ellenberg;③the sugar-inversion method is an effective method for researching the relationship between temperature and vegetation in mountainous landscapes;④for measuring the effective temperature in alpine and sub-alpine areas, the sugar-inversion method must be modified and improved technically.