Abstract: In order to ascertain soil infiltration capability and analyze its influencing factors at different developmental stages of typical forest lands in southern mountains of Henan Province, soil infiltration process was simulated to analyze their characteristics, effect of physical and chemical properties of soil and root structure on soil infiltration was studied by field sampling and laboratory analysis. The results indicate that, 1）soil infiltration capacity of various types of forest land in 0-10cm layers was higher than that in 10-20cm layers; the initial and stable soil infiltration rate, accumulated infiltration capacity within initial 30 minutes in different soil depths changed in the same order: 30-year-born Pinus massoniana coniferous forest> 30-year-born Quercus acutissima broad-leaved forest> 30-year-born Quercus acutissima+Pinus massoniana mixed coniferous> shrub> 20-year-born Quercus acutissima broadleaf forest>20-year-born Quercus acutissima+Pinus massoniana mixed coniferous> 20-year-born Pinus massoniana coniferous forest. The forest lands that had the highest mean values of final infiltration rate in 20-year-born and 30-year-born forests were Quercus acutissima forest (3.140mm/min) and Pinus massoniana forest (4.256mm/min). 2）There was a notable relationship (P<0.05) between soil permeability index and soil organic matter content, capillary porosity, non-capillary porosity, root volume density, root surface area density; for the soil infiltration capacity the most important indicators of soil physical and chemical characteristics and root structure were capillary porosity and root surface area density respectively, and the canonical correlation coefficient of which were 0.559, 0.773 respectively.