AbstractLipids were extracted quantitatively from young cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) leaves with a chloroform‐methanol mixture. Total lipids were purified by the Folch procedure and separated into non‐polar lipid, glycolipid and phospholipid fractions by column chromatography. Lipids of each fraction were further subjected to thin layer chromatography and gas‐liquid chromatography. Young cassava leaves were found to have low content of lipids (3.02%) of which 22.4, 25.1 and 48.2 were non‐polar lipids, glycolipids and phospholipids, respectively. Pigments (11.5%), wax and hydrocarbons (1.2%), steryl esters (2.9%), methyl esters of fatty acids (2.0%), trigly‐cerides (1.5%), fatty acids (2.1%), diglycerides (1.1%) and sterols (0.1%) constituted the leaf non‐polar lipids. The leaf glycolipids were made up of esterified steryl glycosides (2.1%), monogalactosyl diglycerides (12.5%), steryl glycosides (1.1%), cerebrosides (4.2%) and digalactosyl diglycerides (5.2%). The leaf phospholipids were found to include cardiolipin (3.6%), phosphatidylglycerol (21.5%), phosphatidylethanolamine (16.4%), phosphatidylserine (0.7%), phosphatidylinositol (4.0%) and other unidentified phospholipids (2.5%). Phosphatidylcholine was present only in trace quantity. Analysis of the fatty acid composition of each of the leaf lipids revealed that, with the exception of steryl esters, all leaf lipids have high content of polyunsaturated fatty acids.