Art. XIII. — On a New Species of Leucosolenia from the 

 neighbourhood of Fort Phillip Heads. 



By Arthuk Dendy, D. Sc. 



[Read December 8, 1892.] 



The species here described was collected by Mr. J. 

 Bracebridge Wilson, M.A., in the neighbourhood of Port 

 Phillip Heads, bvit unfortunately too late for it to be 

 included in Part I of the Monograph of the Victorian 

 Sponges, which deals with the group (Homocoela) to which 

 it belongs. 



Leucosolenia uteoides, n. sp. 



In external form and canal system tlie sponge very 

 closely resembles Leucosolenia stolonifer, Dendy,* belonging, 

 like tlie latter, to the section of the genus Leucosolenia to 

 which I have proposed to apply the name Simplicia. The 

 single specimen is colonial, consisting of about one hundred 

 individuals united together by their bases only and rising 

 vertically upwards side by side so as to form a compact 

 colony. The spongorhiza is not conspicuous, being repre- 

 sented by the union of the various individuals at their 

 bases. From the basal portions of the individuals, thus 

 united, arise numerous short, slender, downward-growing, 

 tubular processes, which apparently serve, as in L. stolonifer, 

 to attach the colony to the substratum. The fully developed 

 Ascon individuals attain a height of about 85 mm. and a 

 diameter of about 2 5 mm. Each is a nearly straight, 

 slender, cylindrical, thin-walled tube, narrowing slightly 

 towards the naked, terminal osculum. The tubes may 

 branch, especially near their bases. Under a lens the outer 

 surface of each tube appears very slightly hispid and also 

 exhibits that longitudinal striation, due to the presence of 

 large oxeote spicules, which is so characteristic of the genus 



* " Monograph of the Victorian Sponges," Part I, p. 46, Plate I, Fig. 2, 



