5 



Colony simple, or, if branched, not hearing branchlets in the manner described 

 above. Spicules : 



Club-stars and doublé stars Juncella 



Lenticular, disk-shaped or fiddle-shaped Plumigorgia 



Much larger, bar-shaped, sometimes lenticular; surface smooth Isidoides 



Doublé bars or girdled bars Nicella 



Spindles and clubs predominating Kllisella. 



Doublé heads and girdled spindles largely predominating. 



Colony flabellate, often reticulate ; calyces lovv verrucse Gorgonella. 



Colony flabellate or dichotomous, the heavily spiculated bases of tentacles 



forming an 8-rayed pseudo-operculum, star-like when viewed from above Verrucella 

 Colony simple, forked or bushy ; calyces usually in spirals, prominent ; 



spicules often cruciform, although not abundant Scirpearella 



The genus Scirpearea is apparently invalid, as the name was used originally for a 

 pennutalid, according to Lamarck 1 . 



Later Lamarck (Hist. Xat. Anim. sans vert., II, 1836, p. 614) places this in his genus 

 Fitniculina. This writer points out that this species has been erroneously confounded with 

 Pemiatula mirabilis Linn. Wright and Studer (Challenger Report, Alcyonaria, 1889, p. 155) 

 say that the type specimen of Funiculina cylindrica Lamk. is a gorgonellid (and probably a 

 Juncella). Studer, however, had previously figured a couple of spicules of Scirpearea mirabilis 

 Cuv. in the plate (Plate V, 29) and Scirpearea mirabilis Pallas in the text, of his paper in the 

 Monatsbericht der Königl. Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1878, p. 660. 



It is impossible at this time to disentangle the real situation and to determine just 

 what Cuvier had before him which he named Scirpearca mirabilis. In view of this situation 

 it seems best to abandon the y;enus alto^ether. 



The following genera are not represented in the collection made by the Siboga, neither 

 clo they seem to have received adequate definition at any time. Without further discussion the 

 definitions of Studer 3 are given in translation as follows : 



"■Phcnilia Gray. Colony arborescent, with short, divergent, usually quadrate branches 

 which sometimes coalesce. Calyces low, in two or three irregular rows on both sides of the 

 branches. Ccenenchyma horny, with plain lateral grooves. Spicules?" 



"Heliana Gray. Colony tree-like, branching dichotomous? Twigs ascending and divergent. 

 Lower twigs occassionally anastomosing. Ccenenchyma hard, horny. Calyces exserted, subcylin- 

 drical short, sometimes bent, in two three or four alternating rows on the sides of the twigs, 

 and irregularly disposed on the branches. Axis hard, stony, gray-brown". 



1 Scirpearea mirabilis Cuvier, (Règne Animal, i ed. IV, 1817, p. 85) Pcnnatula mirabilis Pallas. 



2 Versuch eines Systemes der Alcyonaria, 1887, pp. 68, 69. 



