48 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 
prominence on the side of the parent. ‘The prominence en- 
larges, a mouth opens, a circle of tentacles grows out around 
it, and increase continues till the young finally equals the 
parent in size. Since in these species the young does not 
separate from the parent, this budding produces a compound 
group; and the process often continues until in some instances 
thousands, or hundreds of thousands, have proceeded from a 
single germ, and the colony has increased to a large size, 
sometimes many feet, or even yards, in breadth or height 
Such is the species of Dendrophyllia represented in the fig- 
ure on page 51, and the Madrepora figured on page 50; in 
both of which, and in all such coral zodphytes, each stellate 
cavity or prominence over the surface corresponds to a sepa- 
rate one of the united polyps. 
The compound mass produced by budding—which con- 
sists of the united polyps with the corallum.as their united 
secretion—was called in the Author’s Report, a Zodphyte, it 
being truly animal in nature, though under a plant-like form 
through the plant-like process of budding. But the word to 
many minds conveys the idea that the species is something 
between a plant and an animal, which is totally false; and 
besides, it is often used distinctively for the division of ani- 
mals including the sponges. As a substitute the term Zod- 
thome may be employed, derived from the Greek gwov, ani- 
mal, and Owuoc, a heap—a term applicable also to compound 
groups in other classes, as, for example, those of Rhizopods, 
Bryozoans and Ascidians. The term zoOphyte, where employ- 
ed beyond, signifies a zoéthome formed of united polyps, or a 
polyp-zoothome. The coral of the zodthome being the coral- 
lwm, that of each polyp in the compound corallum may be 
called a corallet—the term calicle, formerly used by the 
author for the same, being now restricted to the polyp-cell. 
