AbstractThe chemical nature of phospholipids of rice bran prepared from two strains, one being Shin‐ei, the non‐glutinous rice strain, and the other Kamui, the glutinous rice strain, was studied. The main phospholipids were phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylinositol (PI) in both strains. The minor phospholipids, lysophosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidylethanolamine were present much more in Shin‐ei than in Kamui. The major component fatty acids were palmitic, oleic and linoleic acids, and unsaturated fatty acids were mostly located in the 2‐C position of the phospholipid molecules in the two strains. The composition and positional distribution of fatty acids of PC were somewhat different between Shin‐ei and Kamui, but those of PE and PI were quite similar in the two strains. The representative molecular species of PC were 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐linoleoyl and 1‐oleoyl‐2‐oleoyl in decreasing order for Shin‐ei, and 1‐oleoyl‐2‐oleoyl and 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐oleoyl for Kamui. In both Shin‐ei and Kamui, the major molecular species of PE and PI were 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐linoleoyl and 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐oleoyl, and the compositions of the molecular species were similar to each other.