]\1USEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGV. 31 



from the surface. Calicles elongated, tubular, often expanded at the end, and 

 armed with eight long, projecting, spiniforni spicula, or clusters of spicula, 

 which are enlarged and bent at the base, but not lamelliform; sides of the 

 calicles usually eiglit-ribbed, and covered with fusiform spicula. 



This genus has been more or less confounded with Faramuricea by several 

 authors. To that genus it is closely allied, differing chieliy in tlie longer 

 calicles and their longer marginal spines, and in having slender fusifornr 

 spicula without the irregular, liat, branched forms, characteristic of Para- 

 miiricca. 



Besides the species herein described, this genus includes Acanthogorgia 

 hirsuta Gray, the type of the genus, recorded by Johnson from ofl" Madeira, 

 and A. Schramii (Duch. & Mich, sp.) from the West Indies. Other species 

 wrongly referred to the genus by Johnson and Pourtales are mentioned under 

 Paramuricea. 



Acanthogorgia armata Verrill. 



Acanthogorgia armata Verrill, Amer. Jour. Sci., XVI., 1878, p. 376 ; XXIV., 1882, 



p. 304. 



Plate III. Figs. 1, la, lb, 2, 2 a, 2 b. 



Coral slender, flexible, much and irregularly branched, bushy and shrub- 

 like, often with the branches somewhat in a plane, and occasionally uniting. 

 Coenenchyma thin, filled with rather small, white, often curved, warted, fusiform 

 spicula, which do not project from the surface in spine-like points. Calicles 

 usually very much elongated, the length often six to eight times the diameter, 

 clavate, or capitate, smallest near the base and suddenly enlarged near the 

 summit, which is surmounted l)y eight groups of long, divergent, sharp, spine- 

 like spicula, Avith their projecting points nearly smooth; sides of calicles with 

 eight low ridges or angles covered with elongated, warty spicula, having an 

 irregular, chevroned arrangement, but usually not projecting from the surface 

 as spines, or but slightly so. 



In a few cases marked variations have occurred in the form of the calicles 

 on different branches of the same specimen (see Figs. 1, 1 a, 1 li). In these 

 cases, on part of the branches they are of normal shape and size (Fig. 1), while 

 on other branches they may be much shorter, cylindiical, or even swollen in 

 the middle and not enlarged at the end (Fig. 1 b); but on still other branches 

 they may have intermediate forms (Fig. 1 a). On the specimen from which 

 these iigures were made the calicles were rougher or more spinose along the 

 sides than usual. 



Height of one of the original examples, 200 mm. (about 8 inches); breadth, 

 150 mm. (about 6 inches); length of calicles, 5 to 8 mm.; their diameter at 

 base, .8 to 1 mm.; at summit, 1 to 1.5 mm. Much larger examples have since 

 been obtained, some of them 1500 mm. (about 20 inches) high, and half as 

 broad. 



