CATALOGUE 
OF 
MADREPORARIA. 
VOLUME V. 
Part I. 
PORITES OF THE INDO-PACIFIC AREA.* 
The Genus PORITES. 
(= Porites Dana; Porites + Synarea Verrill; Porites + Neoporites + Cosmoporites 
Duchassaing and Michelotti; Porites + Synarea + Stylarea Klunzinger ; 
Porites + Synarea + Napopora Quelch.) 
I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
THE genus Porites, though confined to the warmer seas, is probably the most ubiquitous of 
all the Stony Corals. It is par excellence a reef builder, and on account of the closeness of its 
texturet and the minute size of its polyps, it is eminently adapted to build up the outer edges 
of the reef which have to encounter the surf. But though plentiful on reefs, it occurs here 
and there on shores where there are no reefs. In sheltered spots it builds up elegant 
branching stocks, and at first all Porites were thought to be branching; but immense solid 
masses are now known to be common. Mr. Saville-Kent { describes submerged rocks 20 feet 
in diameter, on which rich growths of other corals have settled, built up entirely by huge 
single colonies of these minute animals. 
The genus is both geologically and morphologically a recent, that is, a Tertiary develop- 
* Part II. will contain the Atlantic and West Indian forms. 
+ It is used for building purposes along the shores of the Red Sea (Forskal, Klunzinger), 
and in the Maldives (Gardiner). t Great Barrier Reef, pp. 50, 185. 
B 
