TRACHYMEDUS.E — LIRIOPE . 



423 



This medusa is common at the Tortugas Islands, Florida, and in the Bahamas. It is 

 most abundant, however, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina; a few battered specimens 

 have been found at Newport, Rhode Island, late in the summer. 



Brooks, 1886, gives an excellent figure of the mature medusa and a detailed account of its 

 development from the egg. The development is direct. A delamination gastrula is formed 



Fig. 279. — Liriope indica, after Bigelow, in Bull. Museum Comp. Zool. at Harvard College. 

 Fig. 280. — Liriope scutigera, after Maas, in Ergeb. Plankton Expedition. 



and this develops into a free hydra that possesses a gelatinous umbrella. The free hydra 

 becomes converted into a medusa by the pushing inward of the peristome to form the sub- 

 umbrella. The young medusa has 8 solid tentacles, 4 radial and 4 interradial. The 4 original, 

 radial tentacles usually disappear, however, and are replaced by the 4 long, hollow, flexible, 

 secondary tentacles that characterize the adult. 



Fig. 281. — Liriope minima, after Maas, in Ergeb. der Plankton Expedition. 

 Side and oral views of mature medusa. 



Liriope scutigera McCrady is specifically distinct from "Liriope scutigera" of A. Agassiz, 

 1865, p. 60, fig. 87, and also from "Liriope scutigera" Fewkes, 1881 (Bull. Museum Comp. 

 Zool. at Harvard College, vol. 8, p. 162, figs. 7, 10, plate 6). 



34 



