96 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



D]ECH0R-^4. New Genus. 

 Fofitince with the individuals enclosed in a common and 

 conspicuous epitheca like Microsolena, but with the septa not 

 confluent, apart and trabecular ; gemmation intracalicular. 



DiECHOR-SiA BOLETiFORMis, N. s., PI. 10, fig. 4, magnified 

 4 diam. fig. 4a, calice, magnif. 6 dia. 



Corallum small, turbinate, elliptical, spreading rapidly into a 

 broadly flaring undulating disc. Peduncle wide, but not so wide 

 as the summit.* Calices numerous, polygonal, irregular in shape 

 and size, and all very minute, but some so much longer than 

 others that they appear to result almost from the confluence of 

 two. Septa, an irregular series of sharp needle-like points of 

 every length, sometimes almost stretching from side to side, and 

 making the interior of the very deep fossa bristle with their 

 transparent projections ; wall thickly studded with short stout 

 and very conical points, swollen at the base and always pointing 

 towards the interior of the fossa. Epitheca in very thick folds 

 of yellowish, shining, fibrous-like tissue completely covering the 

 exterior and projecting as a thin lamina above the edge. 

 Inside this there are, in the only specimen I have seen, other 

 raised rings of epitheca enclosing a number of calices, but only 

 very slightly (half a millimeter) above the parent. This raised 

 ring enclosed another circle, also slightly raised, but in this 

 circle the calices appear incomplete, for they are closed com- 

 pletely across by a kind of transparent membrane, on which a 

 few spiculas like septa are lying, and the walls are more 

 roughly granular. The whole calicular surface is convex, broadly 

 elliptical, the ends of the major axis being depressed. The 

 appearance is very like a small dry Boletus such as grow upon 

 dry or withered branches Alt. 7, major axis 7, min. 6, mill. 

 Taken from the side of a dead coral on a reef ofi" Nandi, Fiji 

 Group. 



We may suppose in this very interesting species that the real 

 septa upon which the animal rests are the granular points on the 

 summit of the wall, and that the spiculse or pseudo septa in the 



* The specimen was broadly attached to a coral, and it seems as if in breaking it off, 

 some of the points of attachment had been broken as well. 



