62 Bulletin Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



polyps are numerous, five or six in a line of five millimeters. The 

 polyps are large, well defined, nearly circular, with the summit 

 divided by eight convergent segments, the center somewhat drawn 

 and concave. 



The sterile stalk is 3 to 4 millimeters high, tough, coriaceous 

 and has a pronounced calcareous texture before branching. It 

 divides into five or six branches which are short, closely appressed, 

 which in series each divide to serve as bases of about three lobes, 

 less frequently into four to six lobes. The external surface of the 

 sterile stalk bears a conspicuous layer composed of coarse dumb- 

 bell shape spicules (as in fig. 2). These spicules, while similar 

 to those of the lobes in contour, are shorter in ratio to width, 

 sometimes appearing as in fig. 2, or even shorter. The sub- 

 spherical distal ends of the dumb-bells are roughened all over with 

 coarse, irregular asperities. These spicules are closely packed to- 

 gether so that they form a sieve-like wall which has the depth of 

 the length of a spicule, and consists of a pair of dumb-bells cross- 

 ing another at right angles in serial repetition. An average spicule 

 measures in millimeters : 0.5 long, 0.25 diameter of club end, 0.15 

 diameter of median bar. 



The spicules of the lobes are of two sizes : (a) dumb-bell shapes 

 having a length of 0,6 millimeters, width of enlarged end 0.25 

 millimeters and of the center bar 0.15 millimeters ; (b) dumb-bell 

 shapes in which the bell is less dilated and waist less constricted, 

 having a length of 0.5 millimeters, width of enlarged end 0.5 milli- 

 meters and waist 1.7 millimeters wide. 



References : Alcyonium ceylonicum, Pratt, E. M., Marine Biol. 

 Ceylon, Roy. Soc, London, Pt. II, 1904 (issued 1905), sepa- 

 rate XIX, p. 257, 3 figs. 



Lobularia ceylonicum, Thomson, J. A., and Dean, L. M. I., Siboga- 

 Expeditie, Alcyonacea, Monogr. Xlll-d, 1931, p. 39, pi. 23, 



fig. 2. 



