124 EOCENE AND LOWER OLIGOCENE CORAL FAUNAS. 



branches fuse, the arrangement very irreguUir. Diameter of corallites 

 2 mm.; distance between them usually about 3 mm. Calieular fossa 

 usually appears very deep, because the septa and columella are broken 

 away. In the best-preserved specimens it is moderately deep. Septa in 

 three complete cycles of six systems. Pali (?). Columella fairly well 

 developed, spongy. 



Locality. — Prairic Creek, Alabama. 



Geologic occurrence. Midway bcds. 



Types. — United States National Museum. 



This species is based on very poor material, and is described more for 

 the purpose of making the treatment of the fauna of the Midway beds as 

 complete as possible than for any other reason. There are five specimens 

 in the United States National Museum, evidently belonging to the same 

 species of Oculinoid coral. The species is referred doubtfully to Oculina, 

 because the probability seems greatest that it belongs there, but the interior 

 of the calices has been destroyed to so g-reat a degree that the presence of 

 pali can not be determined. The three characters, (1) the coalescing of 

 the branches into flabelliform masses, (2) the dense coenenchyma, (3) the 

 small size of the calices, wlien taken together, readily distinguish the species 

 from any other coral of the same group found in our Eocene deposits. 

 PL XII, fig. 11, represents a small branch with prominent calices; the 

 highest projects 2.25 mm. Fig. 10 (PI. Xll) shows the habit of growth 

 and the appearance of an eroded mass ; the calices rather surely never 

 projected nuu-h. Fig. 10a (PI. XII) is of a calice with the columella broken 

 do\\n; it shoAvs the arrangement of the septa. 



Genus AMPHIIIELIA Milne-Edwards and Haime. 

 Amphihelia natchitochensis SI), nov. 

 PI. XII, figs. 12 to 18. 

 1896. Amphihelia n. sj). Vauglian. Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 142, p. 49. 



The specimens are poorl}' preserved, l)ut the method of growth, 

 arrangement of calices, and manner of budding is the same as in the genus 

 to which it is referred. 



Although we have not obtained perfect masses, the form of the colony 

 is evidently dendroid. Branches small, the largest that we have being 11 

 mm. in diameter and the smallest 1.75 mm. in diameter. The cross section 



