Boone, Coelenterata, Cruises of "Ara" and "Alva" 65 



comb-like pattern and with lighter creamy yellowish anthocodia ; 

 the stalk, longitudinally marked with interrupted white lines of 

 spicules, has a large, subovate, reniform capitulum., of distinctive 

 form, resembling in contour the Madreporaraian coral, Fungia 

 fragilis Alcock. This capitulum is supported on a substantial 

 stalk which unfortunately is torn off about three centimeters be- 

 low the capitulum. The portion of stalk remaining is irregularly 

 ovate in transverse section, very firm, coriaceous, composed of 

 great masses of coarse spicules, which occur in nearly every 

 position within the semigelatinous tissue, but frequently are verti- 

 cal or obliquely nearly vertical, arranged in close proximity, the 

 gelatinous tissue between the spicules seldom attains more than 

 half of the shorter diameter of a spicule, frequently is of much 

 less width. The circular canals perforate the stalk longitudinally 

 numerously and are of a diameter of one millimeter and occur 

 one to one and a half millimeters apart. The external coenchyma 

 of the stalk is leathery with large white spicules showing through 

 it as interrupted lines or flecks. Both the leathery external and 

 semigelatinous internal tissues contain in addition to the spicules 

 great quantities of minute calcareous granules of indeterminate 

 shape. 



The capitulum is soft, very flexible, with the upper surface 

 concave in the center, the marginal border deflected and with two 

 or three brief incisions resulting in three or four unequal, shallow 

 lobes. The entire dorsal surface is reticulate with a very distinc- 

 tive network, composed of a pavement of white spicules forming 

 a honey-comb pattern of hexagonal units, some of which are regu- 

 lar, others distorted, while a few are irregular polygons. These 

 spicule-lines border the margin of each autozooid, also the siphono- 

 zooids are located each within a unit of the reticulated pattern. 

 The siphonozooids are small, slightly oval, with a small central 

 aperture, from which there are eight lines indicating eight rays, 

 divergent toward the margin. 



The spicules which form the external layer of the reticulate 

 pattern of the capitulum are shown in plate 17, fig. b. These 

 spicules are very white, of the shapes shown, bars with very nodu- 

 lar surfaces, the spicules being arranged variously transversely 

 on the surface and obliquely vertical, forming a frost-like fretwork 

 and on the interior intermeshing with spicules of a deeper layer 

 of the deposit, which are of the shapes shown in pi. 17, fig. c, the 



