TURBINARI^ CRATERIFORMES. 29 



Species 5. Turbinaria edwardsi. (PI. III. ; PI. XXXI. fig. 4.) 



Description. — Corallum nearly regularly crateriform. The slight indications of folding 

 perhaps due to parasitic growths. The cup expands directly from the base. The margin 

 thick (3 • 5 to 4 mm.), with a row of conspicuous young calicles. 



The calicles protuberant, short, truncated cones looking upwards, closely arranged side 

 by side in irregular rows which are also close together. Aperture round-oval, 2 mm., very 

 uniform; margin also uniform, -75 mm. thick, its outer edge is formed by the irregular 

 coenenchyma which changes suddenly into the system of thin, narrow and rather crowded 

 septa (24) ; these fall far short of the half-radius circle. The rather deep fossa is thus very 

 conspicuous, with perpendicular walls, and with a large, not ver}' protuberant columella, which 

 is light and spongy. 



The coenenchyma shows a delicate pattern of fine ridges and furrows. The ridges tend to 

 be solid and continuous in the base of the cup and round the bases of the protuberant calicles, 

 but finely toothed or divided on the calicles themselves, which thus have a velvety appear- 

 ance. In the furrows, under a pocket-glass, the pores are conspicuous. 



The type specimen is an open cup, 26 cm. by 24, and standing 12 cm. high. The walls 

 are wavy and the margin thick, except at one point where it dips and is only the thickness 

 of the budding calicles. The bottom of the cup is filled with crenenchyma in wliich are a few 

 scattered calicles, completely immersed, funnel-shaped, and some like minute pin-holes, with 

 eighteen unequal septa and a columella consisting of a single keel-like plate. The immersed 

 caUcles pass gradually on the slopes of the cup into the protuberant calicles. The specimen 

 is from King's Sound, West Australia. 



Another specimen, distorted by parasites in such a way that at two opposite points the 

 growth of the cup was arrested, appears to belong here. The two sides which have grown, 

 form two wings, some 12 to 13 cm. deep. Wliile the general character of the calicles agrees 

 with the description, there is a great deal more variation in size and degree of protuberance. 

 The cceneiichyma is also somewhat coarser, although of the same type. Further, the same 

 immersed piu-liole calicles are at the bottom of the cup. The specimen is especially 

 interesting on account of its having been attacked by some parasite, which in its action, may 

 be likened to a gall. Almost every stage in the growth of these " galls " can be followed. 

 They commence as proliferations of the coenenchyma generally on the margin of a calicle. 

 Instead of the normal arrangement, the reticulum is looser, and shows all the signs of 

 exuberant growth. Here and there this growth appears as if pouring down into the calicles, 

 filling up the fossa, and ultimately forming a hemispherical excrescence, which may smother 

 several calicles. Or again, an excrescence appears to be lying upon the ordinary coenenchyma 

 as if it were a foreign body, but, by tracing it back to its origin, it is seen to be a proliferation 

 of coenenchyma overUowing, from a centre of growth, the surrounding parts. 



Many of tlie larger excrescences have a liole in the top as if an animal had escaped. 

 The hole leads into a cavity considerably larger than an ordinary polyp cavity, and with all 

 the appearance of having been excavated. 



The other specimens which I associate with this type are small cups from 14 to 9 cm. in 

 diameter, some deep, others fiat and peltate. These differ from the type chiefly in the chai-acter 



