Fig, 25. 



FAMILY V. GORGONIAD^. 



14. GoRGONiA,* Linnaeus. 

 Character. — Polype-mass rooted^ arborescent, consisting of a 

 central axis barked with a polypiferous crust : the axis horny, 

 continuous and flexible, branched in coequality icith the polype- 

 mass : the crust when recent soft and fleshy, ivhen dried porous 

 and friable : the orifices of the polype-cells more or less protube- 

 rant. 



1. G. VERRUCOSA, much and irregularly branched, the branch- 

 es spreading laterally, cylindrical, flexuous, barked when dry 

 loith a lohite icarted crust : segments of the cells unequal, obtuse. 



Cole, t 



Plate XXV. Fig. 1. 

 Frutex marinus flabelliformis, Rail, Hist. Plant, iii- 7. Sir H. Sloane in 



Phil. Trans, abridg. (an. 1746) ix. 198, pi. 4, fig. 4. Keratophyton 



flabelliforme, cortice verrucosa obductum, Eaii, Syn. 32. Erica ma- 

 rina alba frutescens, Petiv. Mus. cent. prim. 9, no. 50. Warted Sea- 

 fan, Borl. Cornw. 238, tab. 24, fig. 1 Gorgonia verrucosa, Lin. 



Syst. 1291. Pall. Elench. 196. Ellis and Soland. Zooph. 89- Turt. 



• From Gorgon — the name of a daughter of Phorcys, whose locks of hair 

 were changed into serpents by Minerva. 



f Ray, in his Historia, mentions Mr, afterwards Dr, Cole of Bristol as the 

 finder of this zoophyte on the coast of Cornwall. Cole is well known to natu- 

 ralists by his ingenious enquiry into the purple liquor of the Purpura lapillus. 



