60 ZOOPHYTES 
page, are common about the reefs of the Pacific. They stand ona 
cylindrical base, which is enveloped in flowers when alive, and 
consist of a network of branches and branchlets, spreading grace- 
fully from a centre, covered above with crowded sprigs of tinted 
polyps. The vases in the collections of the Expedition, at Washing- 
ton, will bear out this description, although but the lifeless coral. 
The domes of Astras are of perfect symmetry, and often grow to 
a diameter of ten or twelve feet without a blemish. The ruder 
hillocks of Porites are sometimes twenty feet across. Besides these, 
we might describe columns, Hercules’ clubs, and various strange 
shapes which are like nothing but themselves. 
56. Each one of these compound zoophytes commenced from a 
single polyp; bud followed bud, and so the germ grew up into the 
coral tree or dome. Calculating the number of polyps that are 
united in a single Astrea dome, twelve feet in diameter,—each cover- 
ing a square half inch,—we find it exceeding one hundred thousand ; 
and ina Porites, of the same dimensions, in which the animals are 
under a line in breadth, the number exceeds five and a half millions ; 
there are here, consequently, five and a half millions of mouths and 
stomachs to a single zoophyte, contributing together to the growth of 
the mass, by eating, and growing, and budding, and connected with 
one another by their lateral tissues and an imperfect cellular or lacunal 
communication. ‘There is hence every variety, as to number, among 
compound zoophytes, down to the simple polyp, which never buds at 
all, and has, for its corallum, a simple calicle ;—it may be a tiny 
goblet, with a stellate cell, as in the Cyathina—a cylindrical cup, as 
in some Dendrophyllias—or a radiated disk, as in the Fungias and 
Cyclolites. 
57. To give a more complete survey of the subject, the following 
varieties of form are here enumerated. 
1. A simple cylindrical or turbinate calicle : Cyathine, some Caryo- 
phyllie and Cyathophylla. 
2. A simple radiated disk: Fungie, Cyclolites. 
3. A conical cap, or inverted basin or cup: Polyphylhe, Zoopili, 
Halomitre, some Fungie. 
4. An upright basin or cup on a short pedicel: some Pavonie and 
Manopore. 
5. Solid hemispherical domes: many Astree and Meandrine. 
These are sometimes nearly or quite globular. In some Cyatho- 
phyllidee, these masses consist of separable columns. 
