*3.2. Total Chlorophyll Content*

A decrease in the photosynthetic pigment content was observed in centella under salt stress in this study (Figure 1). The total chlorophyll content decreased by 50% at 100 mM NaCl. The highest total chlorophyll content was observed under no salinity followed by of the plants grown under 25 and 50 mM NaCl.

**Figure 1.** Total chlorophyll content of *Centella asiatica* L. as affected by different salinity levels. The experiment was carried out in triplicate. Different letters represent significant differences at the *p* < 0.05 (FW: fresh weight).

#### *3.3. Electrolyte Leakage*

The results showed that electrolyte leakage increased with increasing salt concentrations. Minimum electrolyte leakage was found in control plants followed by 25 mM NaCl salinity. Increasing salinity by 50 and 75 mM NaCl and increased electrolyte leakage by 2.7 and 3.4 times compared to control, respectively, while the highest increase of 4.5 times in electrolyte leakage was found at 100 mM NaCl (Figure 2). There was also a significant and positive relationship of electrolyte leakage with shoot Na+ (r = 0.85, *p* < 0.001) and root Na<sup>+</sup> content (r = 0.62, *p* < 0.001) (Table 3).

**Figure 2.** Electrolyte leakage of *Centella asiatica* L. as affected by different salinity levels. The experiment was carried out in triplicate. Different letters represent significant differences at the *p* < 0.05.

**Table 3.** Correlation coefficients among some morphological and physiological characteristics.


\* and \*\*: significant difference at 5 and 1%, respectively; ns: not significant.
