276 
TRIBE IL— CARYOPHYLLIACEA. 
• 
The large number of tentaeles in the polypes of this 
tribe allies them to the Astr^acea, and at the same time 
separates them from the Madreporacea and Antipa- 
» THACEA. Moreover, while the mode of increase in the 
compound species, by gemmation of the sides or base, 
removes them from the former, it affiliates them to the 
latter tribes. The majority of species deposit a corallum 
of lime, the calices of which are many-rayed. In compound 
species, the interstices between the corallites are not occupied 
by prolongations of the septal plates, but are granulous 
or porous, or sometimes faintly channeled. The stony 
plates {septa) are nearly or quite entire, rarely denticulate. 
Within the corallum the septa are connected laterally only 
by very distant dissepiments, if at all, never by series ot 
transverse plates. The stars, in a transverse section, are 
simple ; the chambers being rarely crossed by dissepi- 
ments : the calices are very commonly cylindrical, with 
narrow plates, arranged neatly around, and have often 
a broad bottom, generally porous and convex (Dana). 
The vast majority of Caryophylliacea are coralli- 
genous ; but this statement will not apply to those which 
belong to the British seas : for of the seventeen species 
presently to be described, seven are destitute of a corallum. 
So far as I am acquainted with them, the tentacles of 
our native species (with the exception of Zoanthus) differ 
from those of our Astr.(EACEA, in having the cnidce not 
lodged in the substance of the walls, but aggregated into 
masses wdiich form warts on the surface. Most of them 
have, moreover, these organs terminated with globose 
heads, destitute of cnidce, but studded with minute hairs 
(^palpocils). 
