TURBINARIA. 3 



the flowers of an umbelliferous plant, all being firmly cemented together by a substance 

 which forms the general surface. On this surface all the tubes open at about the same level. 

 Oken's principal species is Turhinaria (Madrepora) crater of Pallas, but he included also 

 Madrcpora pcUata, M. cincrascem, Ellis and Solander ; and, further, M. jnlcus, figured by Ellis 

 and Solander, and now known as Ilcrpctolithcs limacimcs, and very widely removed from the 

 Turbinariaus. 



This description is of more than mere historical interest, inasmuch as it faintly 

 recognises the arrangement of the polyps as giving the form to the coral. But, for lack of 

 workers, no one recognised tliat the specimens so described were merely the early stages in 

 the growth of an important genus containing many large and imposing forms. 



About the same time (1816), Lamarck * divided his Polypiers lamelliferes into those 

 with terminal corallites and those with corallites arranged laterally or spread out over a 

 surface. This latter division is again divided into those with corallites on one side and those 

 with confluent corallites on all sides. Under the former heading are arranged three genera : 

 Echinopora, Explanaria and Astrea. In this classification of Lamarck we again find some 

 faint recognition of the mutual relationship of the individual corallites as the leading 

 principle. It is, however, vague and unsatisfactory, and finds no place in his definition of the 

 genus.f The very different generic names and descriptions given by Lamarck (" Ejjjlanaria ") 

 and Oken (" Turhinaria ") suggest that whereas the latter had chiefly, if not exclusively, 

 young cup-shaped specimens, Lamarck had much larger specimens in which the cup form was 

 more or less obscured by the membranous fronds. 



Under the genus Explanaria, Lamarck, ignoring or ignorant of Oken's genus Turhinaria, 

 grouped the Madrejwra crater of Pallas, re-named Explanaria infundibulum, with Ellis and 

 Solander's species M. cincrasccns. This, in describing a specimen which he took to be the 

 same species, he practically re-named Explanaria mcscntcrina. With these two, he associated 

 four other species which are not Turbinariaus. Two true Turbinariaus, however, T. palifcra 

 and T. stdlulata, were included among his Astrea under the same specific names. Further, 

 mcsenterina, after being long used as a synonym for cincrascens, subsequently became a 

 separate species. 



In 1820, Schweigger | adopted Lamarck's Explanaria under the following definition, 

 " Stirps supcrnc dilatata, mar</inc stchfoliaceo, had contractu, tuhidis lamcllosis in massa calearca 

 sparsis et parallelis, apidbus emergentihus" but gives only two species, Explanana crater and 

 Ex. cincrascens. Schweigger thus, while adopting Lamarck's generic name, returned to the 

 older specific names, rejecting Lamarck's names infundiluhim and mesenfenna. 



Eichwald, in 182'J ('Zoologia specialis,' i. p. 184), follows Lamarck and Schweigger with 



* ' Hist. Nat. des Auiniaux sans Vertebres,' ii. pp. 220, 254. 



t " Polyparium lapideum, fixum, in membranam liberam, foliaceam, undatam aut convolutam 

 et subloliatam e.\i)an.sum ; una supcrficie stellifera. Stellie sparsa?, sessiles, subdistincta\" — p. 254. 

 J 'Haudbuch dcr Naturgeschichtc dcr skelettlosen ungegliederten Thiere,' p. 419. 



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