Leaf construction cost is the amount of glucose required to produce per unit leaf mass or leaf area, which reflects the fundamental energy invested for carbon gain of leaves and is related to processes driven by light interception, or limited by diffusion to the plant surface. In this study, we presented observed data of specific leaf area, the heat of combustion, organic nitrogen content and ash content in leaves collected from different canopy positions across 16 dominant tree species in a subtropical evergreen broadleaved forest in Jiulian Mountain of Jiangxi Province. Calorimetric method was used to estimate mass- and area-based construction costs (CCm and CCa) of leaves in different annual cohorts according to tree species and sampled canopy heights. The heat of combustion was the main determinant of leaf CCm. Across tree species, the CCm varied little with coefficient of variation (CV) of 3%～6％, while the CCa varied greatly with CV of 27%～28％. The heat of combustion and the CCm were negatively correlated with specific leaf area. Because specific leaf area generally declined with the increasing of sampled canopy heights, both CCm and CCa generally increased with sampled canopy height across the 16 tree species. Our results suggest that: 1) higher leaf CCm results from the higher content of chemical components that cost high energy; 2) the height-related variations in leaf construction costs and special leaf area may be considered as integrated indicators of plant plasticity in response to changes in light and water resources along a canopy profile.