79 



This species was lirst described and tigured in 1862 by 

 Mobius under the name Solanderia verrucosa. His speci- . 

 men was obtained in Algoa Bay. In 1866, Gray, who 

 overlooked Mobius's paper, gave a short description of a 

 specimen obtained near the Cape of Good Hope for the 

 British Museum, under the name Homophyton gattyiae. 

 Three or four years later KoUiker made a careful investiga- 

 tion of the specimens attributed to the genus Solanderia, and 

 discovered that the specimen for which this name was first 

 proposed was a sponge. He therefore proposed to abandon 

 the name Solanderia from the group of Alcyonaria alto- 

 gether, and in so doing changed the name of the Cape species 

 to Spongioderma verrucosum. 



One of the specimens sent to me is an unbranched frag- 

 ment, about 200 mm. in length and 5 mm. in diameter. The 

 coenenchym is bright red in colour, and the moderately 

 prominent verrucae yellow. The greater part of the 

 fragment is covered with a thin coating of a sponge belonging 

 to the genus Esperella, only the yellow verrucae projecting 

 through it. This sponge is described as being like " muci- 

 lage " when fresh. It is interesting to note that the specimen 

 described by Mobius was also covered with this same sponge. 

 It is not necessary to give in this place in detail the general 

 characters of the species : but as a point of systematic 

 interest, attention may be called to the very great variety of 

 form and colour presented by its spicules. 



Some of them are figiu'ed in the paper by Mobius, but no 

 attempt is made to state in words the form of the spicules. 

 Apart from the fact that they are all, or nearly all, profusely 

 ornamented with blunt papilliform processes, they have no 

 characteristic feature. There are spheres, rods, spindles, 

 plates, tripods, crosses, etc., etc., varying in size from 0.2 mm. 

 in greatest length to less than .03 mm. in diameter. In 

 colour ever}^ variety of tint may be found of yellow, pink and 

 red ; and many spicules appear when seen singly to be quite 

 colourless. 



I can find no evidence of sexual organs in this specimen. 

 Another fragment collected in the same haul is 220 mm. 

 high, and consists of a piece of main branch (?) and three 

 branchlets. It differs from the type snecimen in having the 

 verrucae of a red instead of a yellow colour, but the 

 coenenchym is encrusted \\ ith the same species of sponge. 



