VOLUME LXIV NUMBER 6 
THE 
BOTANICAL GiaverEre 
DECEMBER 1917 
RESIN SECRETION IN BALSAMORRHIZA SAGITTATA 
ERNEST CARROLL Faust 
(WITH PLATES XXVIII-XXXI AND TWO FIGURES) 
Introduction 
This problem was undertaken to determine the origin of the 
secretory tissues and the cause of resin secretion in Balsamorrhiza 
Sagitiata. The problem was suggested by Professor JosepH E. 
Kirkwoop, of the State University of Montana, to whom the writer 
desires to express hearty t thanks for valuable suggestions during the 
progress of the study. 
Among the earliest students of secretory organs and their func- 
tion was MEYEN (13), who stated that “these secretion organs arise 
from enlarged intercellular passages. One cannot consider them as 
mere containers, in which the secretion’ is laid by, but one must 
compare the containers with their contents to inner glands, and the 
surrounding walls as specialized glands.’’ This writer proposed 
that the excretory cells surrounding the secretory canals prepare 
the balsam and then secrete it through the wall into the inter- 
cellular lumen. That the process is surrounded by a sort of mystic 
vagueness for MEYEN is evident from the description ‘ wonderful’? 
which he applied to the process. In his work on the pine MEYEN 
(14) found resin not only within the secretory passages and the 
surrounding cells but throughout the entire stem. 
The opinions of the earliest investigators on resin formation 
were extremely diversified. KARSTEN, WIGAND, WIESNER, and 
441 
