NO. 1923. DESCRIPTIONS OF PACIFIC ALCYONARIA— NUTTING. 99 



Family BRIAREID^. 



Scleraxonia with a pseudo-axis composed of closely packed spicules 

 which are not fused. 



Genus PARAGORGIA. 



Colony upright, branched; axis with large water-vascular canals; 

 siphonozooids present. 



PARAGORGIA NODOSA Koren and Danielssen. 



Paragorgia nodosa Koren and Danielssen, Nye Gorgonider og Pennatulider 

 tilhorende Norges Fauna, 1883, p. 18. 



Colony consisting of a thick stem with short, simple clavate 

 branches, 17 cm. long, 9 mm. in diameter at base. The stem is 

 strongly archea throughout so that its distal end points downward, 

 perhaps on account of being forced into a small bottle. The stem 

 gives off a number of branchss from all sides, some of which are merely 

 irregular nodules seated immediately on the stem, and others are 

 clavate branches. One of these is 3.4 cm. long, 4 mm. in diameter 

 near its base, and 14 mm. across the thickest part of the nodulated, 

 club-shaped distal end. These end swellings are sometimes more like 

 rude nodulated spheres than clavate in form, and at times such 

 spheres are seated directly on the stem without evident pedicels. 



Nearly all of the polyps are situated on these nodulated portions. 

 In one case there are about 18 calyces situated on one of these spher- 

 ical terminations of a branch. The calyces are about 6.5 mm. apart, 

 from opening to opening. Occasionally a polyp is seated on a main 

 stem or branch, where it may be the beginning of a new branch. 



The individual calyces are low verrucas with 8-lobed margins, 

 about 3 mm. in height and 6 mm. in diameter at the base. Small 

 polyps appear in the spaces between the larger ones. The polyps 

 are completely retractile, and in retraction the tip of the infolded ten- 

 tacles are far below the calyx margin, the latter itself being involuted 

 during the complete retraction of the polyp. The tentacles bear 

 longitudinal spindles. 



The zooids are minute, and their external openings so tightly 

 closed in alcoholic material as to be invisible. On dissection they 

 can be seen in considerable numbers just beneath the surface. They 

 appear to have but a single mesentery. 



A cross section of a branch shows the undifferentiated axis to be 

 composed almost entirely of an aggregation of small spindles trav- 

 ersed by large and conspicuous longitudinal canals of the water- 

 vascular system. 



Spicules: These are mostly rather small irregular tuberculate 

 spindles, and a few irregular minute double-heads, crosses, etc. The 

 spicules in the pseudo-axis are mostly white in color. 



