19 



tuberculate spicules. There is a regular series of water-vascular canals immediately arround the 

 axis and many others which conspicuously penetrate the axis. The axis is composed of a felted 

 mass of slender rod-like or needle-like spicules, or spicules with distinct thorny points, or 

 spindles with conspicuous irregular Verrucae. 



A cross section of a twig shows a relatively thick coenenchyma in which the polyps 

 are embedded. Here the water-vascular canals do not seem to penetrate the axis. 



Spicules. The coenenchyma is filled with oval and coarsely tuberculate spicules the 

 tubercles being so closely packed as to give a distinct resemblance to a morula, there being no 

 appearance of definite whorls. The axis contains spicules of various forms, the rod-like or needle- 

 like spindles with thorny points predominating. There are also true spindles with coarse irregular 

 Verrucae, and oval forms like those in the coenenchyma. There are all sorts of intergrading 

 forms as well as an occasional cross, club or irregularly branched form. 



Color. The colony is creamy white throughout. Other specimens, however, are tan-colored. 



Other specimens from Station 273 are much larger than the one described. One of these 

 is quite symmetrical, 41 cm. in height and with all of the terminal branchlets growing from 

 the upper sides of branches. The color of this specimen is more decidedly a browni.sh yellow 

 than any other of this species in the collection. Still another specimen shows a larger number 

 of verruciform calyces on the flattened side of the colony. In places the lateral grooves in which 

 the calyces are found, form a series of short definite slits, rather than a continuous groove. 



It seems evident from a study of these specimens that Iciligorgia can not go into the 

 sub-family Spongioderminse ; because the axis is conspicuously traversed by large water-vascular 

 canals, while that sub-family is characterized by an axis which is not penetrated by these canals. 



Genus Titanidium Agassiz. 



Titanidinm (Agassiz Manuscript) Verrill. Revision of the Polypi of the Eastern Coast of the 



United States. Memoirs Boston Society of Nat. Hist. I, 1863, p. 10. 

 Briareuiti KolHker. Icones Histiologies, II, 2, 1865, p. 141. 

 Titanidium Studer. Versuch eines Systemes der Alcyonaria, 1887, p. 29. 

 Titanidium Kölliker. Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Polypen, 1870, p. 8. 

 Titanidium Wright and Studer. Challenger Reports, the Alcyonaria, 1889, p. XXXIII. 



The original definition of this genus is as follows : 



"Corallum irregularly dichotomous or simple; crenenchyma rather thick, suberous, very 

 spiculose, traversed by well-developed longitudinal ducts arranged in a single series around the 

 axis. Cells disposed on all sides of the branches, not prominent. Axis perfectly distinct from 

 the coenenchyma, compact, but soft, cork-like, composed of closely united calcareous spicula". 



Kölliker (1870) gives the following, which is a adopted in the present work: 



"Axis moderately well defined, cortex of a single layer of hard sarcosome with minute 

 canals. Polyps as in P lexanra^' conX.'äAW&A in pits in the cortex. Spicules 3 — 4 — 6 and 8-rayed 

 with warty ends" 



This author also gives the only good figure that I have seen of Titaniditcm steSerosiiin 

 (Ellis and Solander) the type and, up to the present time, the sole species of this genus. 



