FOUNDING OF THE GENUS. "255 



the structure of the Kentucky form only would permit its reference to 

 this genus, there is no douht that this is the plicatum meant when it is 

 noted that the enumeration of these species by Ehrenherg follows the 

 order of description by < roldfuss. Had the reference been to the Swedish 

 coral it would have stood last in the list. Lonsdale, however, some eight 

 years later, in describing corals from the Wenlock limestone of England, 

 made this latter form synonymous with Strombodes plicatum of Ehrenberg.* 

 The following description and the figures which accompany it render it 

 almost certain that he really had in mind the structure of the Kentucky 

 coral, the plicatum proper and not the. perfoliatum : 



"This coral is essentially distinguished from Cyathophyllum and Cystiphyllum by 

 internal structure, the center consisting not of transverse plates, resembling the 

 septa of a Nautilus, or of bladder-like cells, but of lamellae contorted spirally. In 

 the description of Strombodes by Schweigger and other authors, this structure is not 

 mentioned; it is presumed, nevertheless, that the fossil here represented is a 

 Strombodes, and that it is the S. plicatum of Goldfuss." 



It seems very probable that figures 4b and 4c are of Ptychophyttum 

 patellatum, Schlotheim, sp.,f while the affinities of the other forms are 

 more uncertain and indeterminate from the figures and description. 



In his " Silurian Fossils of Ireland " X McCoy refers certain forms, 

 " Rare in the green slates of Doonquin, Dingle, county Kerry," to the 

 Swedish coral under the name Strombodes plicatus, simply following the 

 lead of Lonsdale.§ Under the name Cyathophyllum plicatum, Goldf., de 

 Koninck described and figured a series of specimens from the Carbo- 

 niferous of Belgium, 1 1 comparing them Avith the original Kentucky coral 

 of Goldfuss in the Bonn museum. This type and the forms associated 

 with it have no interest in this connection further than their complete 

 separation from the Swedish perfoliatum.. Milne-Edwards thought that 

 the Kentucky coral might be referred to Hallia, E. and H. € 



In a work which I have been unable to consult (the second edition of 

 Lamarck)** Milne-Edwards refers certain corals to the C. plicatum (per- 

 foliatum) of Goldfuss; and with this possible exception there seems to 

 have been no other specimens of this coral described or figured from 

 1S2G to 1850. Recognizing that this form has no relationship with 

 Cyathophyllum, Edwards ami Haime, in their ''British Fossil Corals." 



Murchiaon's Silurian System, pt. ii, 1839, pp. 691-692, pi. 16 bis, figs. I. la, 16, 4e. 

 flliM. Nat. des Cor., I860, vol. iii. p. 100; Monographie der Zoantharia Scleroderma^ Rugosa 

 (Is;::). Wladislaw Dybowski, \>. 142. 

 Ink;, p. 61. 

 i A Monograph of the British Fossil Corals, pt. \. p. 291. 

 Description des AnimauxFossiles qui setrou vent dans le Terrain Carbonifere de Belgique, 1842-4, 

 p. -i-i, pi. e, figs. Ui-g 

 • in-. ,\ii. des ''"i-., vol. iii, p. ::.".;. 

 ** Vol. ii, 1836, p. 131. 



