We addressed the recent plea for a use of traits with a direct mechanistic link to drought tolerance to be considered in trait-based and global change ecology. On 122 herbaceous species covering a broad range of water availability conditions in temperate grasslands, we demonstrated the feasibility of the use of turgor loss point (πtlp), a key leaf drought tolerance trait that becomes operational for large-scale studies via the novel osmometry method. We investigated the coordination of this mechanistic trait with other commonly used proxies of drought tolerance. πtlpwas not or very weakly coordinated with the first two leading dimension of the global spectrum of form and function, plant height and specific leaf area. πtlp was tightly coordinated with intrinsic water use efficiency and leaf dry matter content. We suggest that stratification by plant functional types and/or accounting for species phylogeny might help to identify trait relationships that may be transferable among different systems.