The concentration of glucan, mucilage, soluble carbohydrates, and mal;c acid were determined In Opuatia bigelovii EngehnL during a 23-week period. The experiment began during the dry summer by irrigation to stimulate Crassulacean acid metaboUsm and was followed by 13 weeks of drought. Spoehr (8). The latter were completed before there was much understanding of CAM physiology and ecology. In particular, the early researchers were perplexed by the diurnal acidity changes they sometimes observed, and their carbohydrate investigations were overshadowed by the pentosan theory of succulence (2). Our work reexamines the question of carbohydrate metabolism by cacti growing in a changing desert environment.
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