100 MADREPORARIA. 



74. Goniopora Red Sea (6)1- (PI. VIII. figs. 1, 2; PI. XIII. fi- 12.)- 



[Koseir, coll. Klunzinger ; British Museum.] 



Astrcea planulakt, Ehrenberg, Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres (1834), p. 95 (Jide Klunzinger). 

 Goniopom lohata, Mil ne-Erl wards and Haime, Nat. Hist. Coralliaires, iii. (1860) p. 191. 

 Goniopora phnnlata, Klunzinger, Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres, ii. (1879) p. 45, Taf. viii. fig. 23, 

 Taf. V. fig. 24. 



Description. — Coralluni forms tliick expanding columns with rounded tops, which may 

 divide into lolies, and with smooth flattened sides. The living layer descends 3-5 cm. Epitheca 

 in narrow strips. 



Calicles from 3-5 mm., opening on the top in a vertical stroma of bent lamellaa (fig. 1). 

 The wall is constructed irregularly by synapticuliT3. The septa are long, wavy, conspicuous, 

 perforated, with ragged edges. From 2-8 septa in most of the calicles rather more conspicu- 

 ously developed than the rest. At the sides (fig. 2) the walls are either simple or very 

 simply reticular, in wliich case the septa show as points upon the tops of the walls. The 

 three cycles of septa are prominent even round the margin of the walls and here and there 

 the typical formula can be made out ; the primaries and secondaries are hardly distinguishable, 

 and the tertiaries remain rudimentary. The columellar tangle is inconspicuous, rises slightly 

 in the fossa, and in the lateral calicles sends up a confused group of twisted paliform flakes. 



The interseptal loculi are well marked and open. The transverse sections show the 

 calicles very clearly as radial ari'augements of wavy lamellate septa separated l)y a reticular 

 wall. 



The description is that of the duplicate specimen obtained by the Museum from 

 Dr. Klunzinger. It has, to all appearance, the same essential structure as that obtained 

 by the Paris Museum, numbered Z. 174. a. The one figured by Dr. Klunzinger in his Taf. 

 viii. fig. 23 shows a very divergent cluster of columns starting from the summit of an original 

 (dead) column. 



The coral is a typical example of the expanding sheaf formation, but it is interesting to 

 note that the lateral calicles are not very regular ; the walls are either simple or form a sort of 

 angular reticulum irregularly striated by the septa. 



Dr. Klunzinger mentions colonies 20 cm. high, 4-6 cm. thick at the base, and 4-15 cm. 

 across the summit ; the specimen in the possession of the National Museum is 16 cm. high, 

 9 cm. across the base, and 16 cm. across the summit. The living polyps are described as 

 cylindrical, 5 mm. thick, 8 mm. high, with 24 tentacles arranged in " 2-3 rows,"* blunt and 

 shorter than the radius of the oral disc. Tlie body is ashy grey changing to reddish 

 grey. The oral disc is a beautiful violet, with white and pale yellow tentacles, with dark 

 points at their tips. 



Ehrenberg's coral Astrcea vlanulata, with which Dr. Klunzinger identifies his, had brown 



• It is probable that this appearance was due to the tentacles being contracted and tightly 

 packed ; the author's description of their size and shape helps to confirm this suggestion. Gf. 

 Introduction, p. 17. 



