REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA, 107 
thick and obtusely rounded, and they are usually grouped close together in consequence 
of the crowding of the paxille. A number of the paxille have two or four enlarged 
papilla, which form incipient pedicellariz. The paxille present no definite order of 
arrangement. 
The marginal plates are small and short; the plates of the superior series are the 
smallest, and are inconspicuous, being much less in height than those of the companion 
inferior series. The supero-marginal plates are thirty in number counting from the 
median interradial line to the extremity, and are rectangular with the height about equal 
to the length throughout. They are covered with short, uniform, equal, papilliform 
spinelets, similar to, but slightly longer than, those on the paxille, and are devoid of 
any large or true spines whatever. The position of the supero-marginal plates is entirely 
marginal. 
The infero-marginal plates correspond exactly in length to the superior series, but 
their height or transverse dimension is much greater, being from twice to three times as 
great in the interbrachial arc, but diminishing along the ray until at the extremity 
the height and length are subequal. Their posture is such as to form a broad marginal 
border to the actinal area of the disk and along the inner half of the ray, the breadth 
diminishing towards the extremity, where they conform to the rounding of the ray, and 
only a small part is visible in the actinal view. Their surface is covered with short, 
robust, papilliform spinelets, subconically pointed. The transverse furrows between 
adjacent plates are well defined. Normally every plate in the interbrachial arc, and as 
far as midway along the ray, bears at its end, adjacent to the supero-marginal plate, 
a pedicellarian apparatus, formed by two to four thickened and enlarged papilliform 
spinelets, and larger than those constituting the general covering of the plate. This 
pedicellarian apparatus is consequently a conspicuous object, and there are no larger 
spines on the plate. 
The adambulacral plates are longer than broad (in fact remarkably large for so small 
a form), and they have a slightly convex margin towards the furrow. Their armature 
consists of a furrow series of seven or eight short, subclavate, papilliform spinelets, sub- 
equal in length on the outer half of the ray, but with the median ones slightly longer on 
the inner part of the ray; these are directed over the furrow, radiating slightly apart. 
External to the furrow series, and on the actinal surface of the plate, is a longitudinal 
series of five or six short, equal, papilliform granules (scarcely worthy of being called 
spinelets) ; and again external to this are one or two subparallel, but often irregular, longi- 
tudinal series of similar and equal-sized papilliform granules or spinelets, the number in 
these outer series being smaller in consequence of the presence of a large pedicellarian 
apparatus composed of three or four (usually four) considerably enlarged papilliform 
spinelets, placed near the aboral margin of the plate, and preventing the extension of the 
one or two outer series of papilliform granules there. 
