A laticifer is a type of elongated secretory cell found in the leaves and/or stems of plants that produce latex and rubber as secondary metabolites.
[1] Laticifer tubes have irregularly edged walls and a larger inner diameter than the surrounding parenchyma cells.
[3] These proteins include enzymes functioning as proteinases and chitinases which help defend the producing plant against insects and other herbivores.
[4] In order to augment the defense of the plant some non-articulated laticifer cells contain highly pressurized stores of latex.
[6] A desert species, Bursera schlechtendalii, pressurizes the canals right where leaves attach to the stem so that when a grazer eats a leaf latex shoots out.