STARFISHES OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS. 141 



close-set and large, floriform, with slender tall pedicels; snpero- 

 marginals without special spines, but with small spiniform pedicel- 

 lariae; inferomarginals with transverse series of 2 to 5 small ap- 

 pressed spines; marginal fascicles very deep and separated by thin 

 high ridges ; actinal f ascioles deep ; actinal interradial area extensive, 

 the plates with thin high keels covered with slender spinelets; fur- 

 row spines usually 5, long, compressed ; subambulacrals 5 to 7 ; mad- 

 reporic body exposed ; tube feet with deposits ; gonads extending to 

 end of ray. 



Descriftion. — Paxillae fairly compact, and touching, with a slen- 

 der, tall pedicel crowned by a floriform group of 15 to 20 peripheral, 

 and 5 to 15 or even more central, terete, bUmt spinelets, the latter 

 often in a compact group resembling a pedicellarian apparatus, the 

 former radiating like the rays of a composite flower. On most of 

 the paxillae 2 to 4 central spinelets are slightly modified with broader 

 tips, and form actual pedicellariae. The paxillae are unusually 

 uniform in size, and are only slightly smaller at the end of the rays. 

 The largest seem to be those of the interradial areas of disk and prox- 

 imal third of ray, those of center of disk and adjacent radial areas 

 (as far as base of ray) being slightly smaller. 



The slender pedicels spring from 6-lobed (stellate) plates, these 

 without definite order on center of disk and midradial region, but 

 elsewhere in oblique transverse rows parallel to interradius. On 

 the ray these series are slightly spaced, and consecutive plates of a 

 row barely touch. In the midradial area the plates sometimes touch 

 or are separated. There is no definite radial series of plates as in 

 Tethyaster suhinetmiis. Papulae distributed all over abactinal sur- 

 face, as in Di'psacaster (not absent from midradial line or center of 

 disk), single, 5 or 6 about each plate. 



Marginal plates of the two series corresponding, with unusually 

 deep fasciolar channels separated by thin high ridges, each of which 

 is composed of the elevation of a combined superomarginal and in- 

 feromarginal plate and is thinner than the intervening channels. 

 The height of this ridge above the bottom of the channel equals 

 about one-half the dorsoventral dimension of the combined marginal 

 plates. Superomarginals forming a rounded bevel as in Tethyaster 

 suhlnermls, covered with short, clavate, papilliform spinelets, becom- 

 ing slenderer on edge of grooves. Most of the plates bear 1 to 3 

 pedicellariae, composed of a couple of slightly modified spinelets, 

 stouter than the others. Sometimes the pedicellaria is pectinate with 

 4 to 6 spinelets. These pedicellariae closely resemble those of the 

 paxillae, but are larger. Spinelets in grooves very numerous and 

 delicate. Superomarginals, about 80. Terminal plate heart-shaped 

 from above, broader than long, and with a shallow notch at both 

 ends. The superomarginals underlie the proximal half. 



