30 BULLETIN OF THP: 



Stenogorgia casta Verrill, sp. no v. 



riate II. FijTs. 1, 1 a, 1 b. 



A small, delicate coral, pure white in alcohol, with rather prominent calicles, 

 in two alternating rows. The base is expanded and adherent. The main stem 

 divides dichotomously from near the base. The branches fork irregularly and 

 unequally, or sometimes branch somewhat pinnatcly and sparingly. The 

 Ijranches and branchlets spread outward at a wide angle, and then curve 

 upward; they lie nearly in one plane, and do not differ much in size, the ter- 

 minal ones often being the largest. The axis is nearly round, chestnut-brown 

 in the larger branches, pale yellowish in the terminal ones. The calicles are 

 prominent verruciform, or broad-conical, and form a close row along each edge 

 of the branches, but those in one row do not lie precisely in a plane, for they 

 alternately face a little to the front and to the rear; those on opposite margins 

 of the branches alternate, and as the swollen bases of the calicles are in con- 

 tact the edges of the branches show a zigzag outline; the calicles are narrow at 

 the summit, in the preserved specimens, and are closed by eight convergent 

 segments, and in most cases they are surmounted by a small round cluster of in- 

 curved tentacles, which show their outer surfaces filled with convergent spicula. 



The largest sj^ecimen is 100 mm. high, and 120 mm. broad; diameter of the 

 branches, including calicles, 2.5 to 3 mm. 



The spicula of the coenenchyma and calicles are rather small, fusiform, often 

 bent, irregularly covered with more or less numerous prominent warts; some 

 of these spicula are elongated and acute at both ends; others ai"e stouter and 

 more obtuse; the longer spicula measure .32 by .06, .28 by .05, .28 by .045, 

 .23 by .05, .20 by .05, .16 by .03 mm.; the stouter ones, .21 by .06, .20 by .07, 

 .17 by .06, .15 by .06, .11 by .045 mm. In the tentacles there are numerous 

 slender, mostly bent and sparingly warted or spinulated spicula, acute at one 

 or both ends, with some that are larger, blunt, and roughly warted at one end, 

 and others roughly warted all over; flattened oblong spicula, some of them 

 with rou'fhly warted borders, also occur. The slender, smoothish spindles of 

 the tentacles measured were .23 by .02, and .19 by .015 mm.; the stouter and 

 rougher ones, .26 by .05, .26 by .03, .19 by .04, .16 by .03, .14 by .03 mm.; 

 the flattened oblong ones, .10 by .05, and .10 by .04 mm. 



Station 318, in 337 fathoms, N. Lat. 31° 48' 50", W. Long. 77° 51' 50", 1880. 



Family MURICEIDiE. 



Acanthogorgia Gray. 



Troc. ZouL Soc. London, for 1857, p. 128. 



Blepluiroijorgia DucH. & Mich., Supplement Mc'm. Corall. des Antilles, in Me'm. 

 Turin Acad., XXIII., 18G4-GG, p. 109. 



Coral variously branched, usually slender and flexible. Coenenchyma thin, 

 filled with fusiform spicula, spmetimea having one end projecting as spinules 



