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Plant of the Week PPllaanntt ooff tthhee WWeeeekk CCrraabb CCaaccttuuss In Australia, the plant which we have called Zygocactus for aeons, is actually a Schlumbergera, a genus of epiphytic cacti from the rainforests of Brazil. In the northern hemisphere, it is often referred to as “Christmas Cactus” or “Thanksgiving Cactus” because the flowers appear prior to these holiday seasons. Botanist Allan Cunningham introduced Schlumbergera to Europe in about 18161 and it has been popular ever since. The name “Crab Cactus” comes from the unique “crab claw” sections of the stem. Schlumbergera belongs to the plant family Cactaceae which is found throughout the Americas and reaches its greatest diversity in northern Mexico and southern Argentina and Bolivia. There is only one cactus species found elsewhere in the world, and this is Rhipsalis baccifera, which occurs not only in the Americas but also in Africa, Madagascar and Sri Lanka where it was probably spread by migratory birds2. Most cacti grow in arid conditions. During the day their stomates remain closed to reduce water loss and then open at night when CO2 is fixed and stored in leaves or stems as malic acid. The next day CO2 is released round the enzyme RuBisCo to increase photosynthetic efficiency. This photosynthetic pathway is known as CAM photosynthesis. CAM stands for “Crassulacean acid metabolism”, a reference to the plant family Crassulaceae in which the pathway was first identified, and because 3 the CO2 is stored overnight as an acid . 1Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Schlumbergera 2Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactaceae 3Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAM_photosynthesis Text and photographs: Alison Downing & Kevin Downing, Biological Sciences, 12 June 2011. .
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