256 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



Genus Cystiphyllum, Lonsdale, 1839. 

 (Murchison's Sil. System, 1839, p. 691.) 



Cystiphyllum C? Microplasma) australasica, Eth. fiL 



(PJates xxxix., figs. 3 and 4; xl., figs. 3 and 4). 



Cystiphyllum americanuni, var. australasica, Eth. fil., Geol. Pal. 

 Q'land, &c., 1892, p. 58, pi. 3, f. 13 and 14. 



Sp. Char. — Corallum, more or less fasciculate, forming loosely 

 agregated colonies. Oorallites long and robust, partially united 

 laterally, or entirely disconnected, with an average diameter of 

 from ten to twenty millimetres, round, oval, or pyriform in 

 section ; walls dense and thick, about one to two millimetres. 

 Vesicular tissue strong and copious, filling the entire visceral 

 chambers ; vesicles in the peripheral region smaller than those in 

 the centre of the corallites, the former usually sublunate in trans- 

 verse section, with a long convex face pointing inwards, and two 

 short concave faces outwards, the latter few or many, irregular 

 in size and form, round, oval, or polygonal. Septal striae some- 

 times seen on the convexity of the vesicles, more particularly, in 

 the peripheral zone. 



06s. — The New South Wales specimens now under description 

 are specifically identical with a coral described by me from the 

 Middle Devonian of Queensland, as above. Of this I am con- 

 vinced after a re-examination of the type of the latter, and also 

 by an inspection of additional material, both kindly forwarded to 

 me for the purpose by Mr. W. H. Rands. 



The corallites are either entirely separate or in partial contact, 

 and long (as much as six inches), cylindrical, or slightly curved. 

 In the former condition they are round, with a maximum diameter, 

 so far as observed, of twenty millimetres. When in contact the 

 outline of the corallites becomes modified to oval, or a peculiar 

 sub-pyriform shape, the contact side often becoming truncated, 

 and the free side gradually swelling out to the normal circular 

 outline. 



The walls are more or less thickened, and in some of the vesicles 

 there is a stereoplasmic deposit also, but without obliteration of 

 their original tissue. Septa are not present, but are at times 

 represented by irregularly distributed endothecal striae on the 

 convex faces of the vesicles forming the general visceral tissue. 

 In sections they appear as cut edges of spine-like ridges, but some 

 corallites are entirely without them. A peculiar development is 

 exhibited within the walls in some cases, the nature of which is 

 by no means clear. This consists of a ring, more or less continuous, 

 of conjoined thickened short protuberances, each having distally 

 a blunt pyramidal end. There is no visible median line in any of 

 these, but the structure of each is in divergent layers from 

 an imaginary central line, having much the appearance of the 



