1 48 777^ GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



These spheroidal berry-like clusters, in accordance with their chiefly containing urticating 

 ceils, or nematocysts, may be appropriately denominated " nematospheres." In the Torres Strait 

 example, they were remarkably brilliant. With the exception of a small spot at its extreme 

 apex, each was brilliant translucent violet ; while its apical spot, by wa}' of contrast, was the 

 most vivid emerald-green. As viewed under a low power of the microscope, the clusters might 

 be appropriate!}' compared to currant-like fruit, carved out of amethyst, with a crystal of emerald 

 inserted, to represent the cicatrix of the antecedent flower. These jewel clusters most 

 frequently comprise five or six spherules only, and, in the most exceptional instances, are 

 no larger in number than nine or ten. A coloured illustration, necessarily inadequate to re- 

 present the natural beauty of the expanded polyps, and also of the jewel-like " nematospheres," 

 is included in Figs. 3 to 30 of Chromo plate No. III. In a second example of this species, 

 collected on the Barrier Reef opposite Cape Flattery, small patches of the tentacles were en- 

 tirely lemon-yellow ; but in all other respects it corresponded with the specimen from Torres 

 Strait. From the same locality on the Barrier Reef a third anemone was secured, which, while 

 corresponding in its broader characters with the two already enumerated, differed from them 

 so conspicuously in certain structural details, that there appeared to be sufficient grounds for 

 its recognition as a distinct species. The tentacles in this example were a most brilliant 

 grass-green, minutely subdivided, and so crowded together on the convoluted surface of the 

 oral disk that they presented the aspect of aggregated tufts of fine, brightly-coloured moss, 

 or, yet more appropriately, certain varieties ol the very finely-divided leaves of cultivated 

 parsley. A few small scattered groups of tentacles were observable a little within the general 

 mass ; but they did not occur as isolated units or in radiating lines as in the specimen pre- 

 viously relerred to. The berry-like bodies, or nematospheres, formed considerably larger 

 clusters in this type, commonly containing from twenty to thirty or more closely-aggregated 

 spherules. The colour of these bodies differed from those of the preceding form in that they 

 were a bright amethyst throughout, a somewhat darker tint of the same hue occupying the 

 position of the emerald spot of the preceding type. The supporting stalk or column, and 

 likewise the centre of the oral and tentacular disk, which is bare of tentacles to a relatively 

 larger extent than obtains in the preceding species, was of a light stone-grey hue, with a ten- 

 dency to a pale shade of green. 



This species differs so distinctly, with regard more especially to the constitution of its groups 

 of nematospheres, from the hitherto single known type, previously described, that it is necessary 

 to confer on it an independent specific name. With reference to the moss-like aspect of its aggregated 

 tentacles, it is herewith proposed to distinguish it by the title of Hderodadyla hypnoidcs. With 

 respect to the coloured illustration of the species, given in Fig. 6 of Chromo plate No. III., it is 

 desirable to remark that the groups of violet nematospheres, while apparently distributed indis- 

 criminately over the surface of the disk, are actually, in all instances, near the edge of its voluminous, 



