CAM photosynthesis is a clever adaptation some plants have where they turn light into sugar during the day, and only breathe in CO2 at night. This lets the plant close up its leaves so they don't lose water during the heat of the day.
CAM plants use sunlight to turn malic acid into sugar, and every night they breathe in plenty of carbon dioxide, storing it as a fresh supply of malic acid. If you have keen senses, you may be able to taste the difference between a CAM plant harvested during the day and one harvested at night because of this variation in sugar and acid content.
Having evolved several times independantly, you see CAM in lots of different kinds of plants: air plants and bromeliads, which have poorly developed root systems; cacti and other succulents, which grow in hot dry environments; you even see it in some aquatic plants. For these, CAM serves not to conserve water, but carbon dioxide - which is of course hard to come by when you don't have any air.
The "crassulacean" part of the name "crassulacean acid metabolism" is there because this phenomenon was first discovered in crassulas. Jade plants are an example of this genus.
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I'm getting really close to just completely cutting my father out of my life (CW transphobia, racism, parental trauma, mention of SA)
He asked me how I was going and I said sincerely that I was actually feeling really bad. That hearing that the premier of the state I live in say I should go to a men's prison if I commit a crime, had caused me to have nightmares about being SA-d to death in prison (true nightmare I had).And no sympathy, no "that's awful", he just said "oh well he has to say that to win over Muslim voters in the western suburbs of Sydney". I'm done with this man.
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I told him on the day he was being racist, now I have told him I need more than benign indifference and told him to read Trans Liberation and Trans/Rad/Fem, he's a fucking liberal intellectual with floor to ceiling bookshelves overloaded with non fiction books, but has he read a single book about trans rights since my coming out? Seems very unlikely. Argh. There is a chance he might give me some money I need for planning life stuff and surgeries so I've got the kiddy gloves on but I'm no longer taking this nonsense.