Abstract The component glycerides of linseed, wild rose, candlenut, soya and stillingia oils have been estimated by chromatography on thin layers of silica impregnated with silver nitrate. The separated glycerides are identified, qualitatively and quantitatively, by gas‐liquid chromatography (GLC) of their methyl esters in presence of added methyl heptadecanoate as an internal standard. The results agree with those obtained by lipolysis or calculated directly from the component acids on the basis of the theory of positional distribution.