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RE: [APD] Closing up for the night



There are some terrestrial plants that do this or something similar. The 
ones I'm aware of are mostly tropical or subtropical leguminous trees or 
shrubs. I have an Acacia burki that folds it's leaflets together in the 
late afternoon. I hear a theory about this many years ago. It was proposed 
that they are reducing the exposed surface area to avoid leaf and limb loss 
from the high winds that are associated with connective storms. I never 
felt very comfortable with this. For aquatics the same idea might work if 
there are increased flows or currents in the late afternoon or night. In 
this case they would be presenting a smaller profile to water movement. In 
at least some areas flows in streams increase at night due to reduced 
transpiration by riparian trees.

I'm not putting this forward as anything but speculation.

Phil Bunch

On Sunday, September 28, 2003 21:57, Jason Miller [SMTP:jvision at telus_net] 
wrote:
>   As I am sitting here in front of my tank w. the lights off (it's about
> 11pm), I see all of the stem plants with their leaves raised - like 
they've
> closed shop for the night.
>   I've seen this in terrestrial flowers, but don't really notice it in
> terrestrial plants.  I am wondering why the aquatic stem plants do this.
> I'd think they'd stay open so that they can re-absorb the O2, that is
> trapped under the leaves, for respiration.
>
> Some food for thought.
>
> Jason Miller
>  << File: ATT00003.txt >> 

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