Gums and Resins

Gums Strictly speaking, gums are always water-soluble. Like gum acacia, gum Tragacanth. Resins are sometimes called gums. However, gums form solutions with water, resins do not. Resins are insoluble in water. Resins Resin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees, valued for its chemical constituents and uses such as varnishes and adhesives, and for essential oils. Plants produce resins for various reasons whose relative importances are debated. It is known that resins seal the plant's wounds, kill insects and fungi, and also allow the plant to eliminate excess metabolites. Formed in special resin canals, resin is typically exuded in soft drops from wounds, hardening into solid masses in the air. It may be obtained by making incisions in the bark or wood of the secreting plant, or extracted from resin-bearing plants by leaching of the tissues with alcohol. The hardening property has made resins traditionally useful as varnishes and adhesive. Resin as produced by most plants is a viscous liquid, typically composed mainly of volatile fluid terpenes, with lesser components of dissolved non-volatile solids which make resin viscous and sticky. The individual components of resin can be separated by fractional distillation. Some resins contain high proportion of resin acids. Oleo-resins Some resins when soft are known as oleo-resins, and when containing benzoic acid or cinnamic acid they are called balsams. Other resinous products are in their natural condition mixed with gum or mucilaginous substances and known as gum resins. Many compound resins have distinct and characteristic odours, from their admixture with essential oils. The hard transparent resins, such as the copals, dammars, mastic and sandarac, are principally used for varnishes and cement, while the softer odoriferous oleo-resins (frankincense, elemi, turpentine, copaiba) and gum resins containing essential oils (ammoniacum, asafoetida, gamboge, myrrh, and scammony) are more largely used for therapeutic purposes and incense. Certain resins are obtained in a fossilized condition, amber being the most notable instance of this class; African copal and the kauri gum of New Zealand are also procured in a semi-fossil condition. Solidified resin from which the volatile terpene components have been removed by distillation is known as rosin. Typical rosin is a transparent or translucent mass, with a vitreous fracture and a faintly yellow or brown colour, non-odorous or having only a slight turpentine odour and taste. It is insoluble in water, mostly soluble in alcohol, essential oils, ether and hot fatty oils, softens and melts under the influence of heat, is not capable of sublimation, and burns with a bright but smoky flame.

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