Latex:
Latex is fluid produced in many higher plants and by certain agaric fungi (Lactariub). In green plants, it is stored in laticifers and in fungi, it is produced in latex ducts consisting of anastomosing hyphae. Latex consists of various substances like alkaloids, starch grains, sugars, minerals salts etc. Rubber concentration is very high in certain plants.
Product:
Milky latex of Hevea brasiliensis yield rubber, which is poly terpene made of isoprene units. Other rubber producing plants are Parthenium argentatum (Guayule), Manihot glaziovii (Ceara Rubber) and Ficus elastica (Assam or India rubber).
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Cellulose:
Cellulose is polysaccharide having subunits of glucose linked by (P-1-4) glycosidic bonds. It is most abundant in cell wall and structural polysaccharide in plants and most probably the most abundant of all compounds found in living organisms. In cell wall, it is present in highly organized form, as microfibrils. It is thought to be synthesized in golgibodies from primary molecules and diphosphate derivatives of gluclose (e.g. UDP & GDP glucose) by action of enzymes that are tightly memebrane bound. It is broken down to cellobiose by enzyme cellulase and cellobiae is further hydrolysed to gluclose units by enzyme cellobiose.
Product:
Ancient Indians used the treated bark of Betula utilis (Bhojpatra) as paper. Egyptians prepared the first paper from Papyrus reed (Cyperus papyrus). These days paper is prepared from a number of cellulose rich wood like Bamboos (most common in India), gymnospermous wood (Picea, Pinus, Abies- most common in western countries), Boswellia, Eucalyptus, Grasses, sawmill waste, cotton rags and waste paper.
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The articles are chopped, cooked in steam and converted into pulp. Pulp is chemically treated to remove lignin. It is then bleeched and passed through rollers to produce paper. Nepanagar has a large newspaper manufacturing industry.
Starch:
(Amylose). Is the most abundant and important polysaccharide in plants formed from glucose, bulk in plant found in storage organs, consists of two structurally different fractions, amylose and amylopectin.
The amylose component consists of D- glucose units linked in a linear fraction by a-1- 4 linkages. Amylopectin is a branched polysaccharide, in this molecule shorter chains (of about 30 units) of glucose units linked by a-1-6 linkages (from which isomaltose can be obtained). Shape and relative proportions of these two constituents in starch grain is characteristic feature of species.
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Products:
(i) Used in making of few beverages, (ii) Major source of carbohydrate from various vegetables & fruits as in potato & Topica.
Perfumery:
Volatile oils, perfumes, e.g. oil of Vetiver, Otto of Roses, Citronella. Flowers and fruits of Mesua ferra (Nagchampa) are used in cosmetics. Fragrant anthers are used in stuffing pillows. Vanilla (flavour) is got from fruits of orchid Vanilla planifolia.
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Certain plants from their various parts yield good smelling perfumes as rose (Rosa indica) leaves yield rose water, after proper distillation. Various other flowers gives various kind of perfumes. Acacia famesiana flowers are used to extract perfumes. This belongs to family Leguminosae.
Perfume oil is also prepared from Eclipta erecta and Matricaria chamonilla of family compositae. And insect oil is prepared from Pyrethrum of compositae.