126 CORALS 



of the family is Gorgonia verrucosa, the only representative 

 of its kind in the British area, and being common in the 

 Mediterranean Sea was probably one of the first of the Order 

 to be given the name Gorgonia. Unfortunately systematic 

 controversy has raged round this common species, and it 

 has been shifted about from one genus to another and 

 from one family to another according to the weight attached 

 to particular characters by different writers. 



The view that will be accepted in this book is that its 

 proper generic name is Gorgonia and that its proper family 

 is the Gorgoniidae, but it should be stated that some 

 authorities consider that it should be called Eunicella and 

 given a place in the family Plexauridae.^ 



The controversy in this case really turns on the question 

 whether the coenenchym should be described as thick or 

 thin. It is, as a matter of fact, thicker than it usually is 

 in the Gorgoniidae and thinner than it usually is in the 

 Plexauridae, and the species in this respect as in others is 

 intermediate in character between the families, but it may 

 be held that being in such a doubtful position it should be 

 classed with the Gorgoniidae on historical grounds. 



Gorgonia verrucosa, sometimes called the Sea-fan (Fig. 

 57), is found in shallow water in the Mediterranean Sea and 

 on the coasts of Brittany, Devonshire, and Cornwall. It 

 grows to a height of a foot or more and, rising from a short 

 stalk attached to some foreign substance, begins to divide 

 up into branches almost at once to form an irregular fan- 

 shaped colony. In large specimens the main stem and some 

 of the larger branches are bare, the black horny axis being 

 exposed. On most of the larger branches, however, the 

 coenenchym is thin and transparent. On the finer and 

 terminal branches only is it relatively thick. From the 

 surface of the coenenchym there project a large number of 

 little mounds or verrucae about 3 mm. in diameter, crowded 

 together on the terminal branches but more scattered on 

 the larger ones. These verrucae shelter the thin trans- 

 parent polyps in the retracted condition. They are usually 

 irregularly distributed, but in some specimens in the Medi- 



^ See J. S. Thomson, Ann. and Mag. Xat. Hist, x., 1912, 4S2. 



