In this study, we selected the EST sequence of CiABR17 from the suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) library of Caragana intermedia under drought stress via blastn. Through RACE, we obtained the 594 bp cDNA fragment of ABR17. The open reading frame is 471 bp, which encodes a polypeptide of 157 amino acid residues, with a calculated molecular weight of 16.44 kDa and a pI of 4.93. The average hydrophobic index of ABR17 is -0.126, which is a hydrophilic protein. The quantitative realtime PCR analysis indicates that the transcript level of CiABR17 was induced differently by dehydration, NaCl and heat treatments, which showed that CiABR17 gene was related to stress response of C. intermedia. Significant difference between CiABR17 overexpression lines and wildtype in fresh weight, dry weight and rosette diameter was found.