16 ACANELLAD^. 



Mopsea encriniila, Ehrenh. C. r. M. p. 131 ; Dana, Exp. p. 679; Gray, 



P. Z. S. 1857, p. 284. 

 Mopsea enci-inula, Milne-Edw. Corall. i. p. 198. 



Hah. Australia? 



Fain. 10. ACANELLADiE. 



Coral bushy, ovate, like a fox's tail. Stem simple, with long 

 stony, and shorter cartilaginous joints, and with verticillate, simple 

 or branched branches, from the horny internodes. The bark very 

 thin, with elongate, fusiform, semitransparent, smooth spicules. 

 Polype-cells scattered, narrow at the base, wider at the mouth, and 

 covered with lanceolate, elongate, smooth, fusiform spines, eight of 

 which are produced beyond the edge of the cell. 



38. ACANELLA. 



Coral shrub-like, branched, dichotomous ; stony joints elongate, 

 cylindrical, finely longitudinally striated ; branches from the carti- 

 laginous joints, verticillate ; branchlets very numerous, branched, 

 diverging, tortuous, forming an oblong tuft, like a fox's tail ; inter- 

 joints very short, cartilaginous, contracted. Bark thin, skin-like, 

 containing long large fusiform and small cylindrical, very tubercu- 

 lated spicules. Poljq^)e-cells on the sides of the branchlets sessile, of 

 the apex of the joints funnel-shaped, twisted, with eight long, erect, 

 spine-like spicules. 



96. Acanella arbuscula. B.M. 



Mopsea sxhw^cvlnxa, Johnson, Ann. S)-Ma(/. Nat. Hist. Srdser. xi.p.299; 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 245, pi. xxxi. f. 1, 1 a. 



Hah. Madeira. 



" The whole coral is coated with a thin brown skin. When this 

 skin has been removed from the lower calcareous joints, they are 

 found to be stony, white, subcylindrical, but rather narrower at the 

 middle than at either end. They are finely striate longitudinally, 

 and the striae are parallel and straight. The interjoints do not 

 nearly equal the joints in length, being little more than disks, and 

 are somewhat less in diameter ; they are striate ; and from them 

 spring the branches. These branches are very numerous, diverging 

 in all directions subdichotomously, and making a tolerably thick 

 bush. They are much thinner than the main stem, and they become 

 gradually more slender iipwards, the calcareous joints at the same 

 time becoming longer. Occasionally two of the ultimate branchlets 

 come into contact and are soldered together. Each branchlet bears 



