102 MADREPORARIA. 
The calicles are 1:5 mm. in diameter, crowded, shallow, polygonal where sharply separated 
by thin walls, sub-circular where the walls are thicker. The former kind of wall, with sharp 
median ridges, occurs on the growing tops and on one side of stock, while on the other side they 
are thickened evenly and uniformly into a rather close granulated reticulum, often 0°5 mm. 
thick, and, to the naked eye, flat-topped, and making the calicles appear as sharp circular 
punctures in the surface. The septa are thin, tend to be lamellate, commence just below the 
aperture, and appear ragged and irregular, with a ring of septal granules, just detached from 
the wall in the thin-walled calicles. In the thick-walled calicles the septa are more regular, 
the septal granules are on the edges of the wall, and the septa themselves fuse in the four 
principal pairs. The pali are rod-like, but appear as small inconspicuous granules. The full 
formula can be usually seen, the lateral members of the ventral triplet being variable. A 
ragged columellar tubercle is usually present. The interseptal loculi are large and deep, but 
not sharply outlined, owing to the slight frosting of the sides of the septa. The calicles on the 
flat tops open in a spongy stroma, and are conspicuous from the large size of the columellar 
tangle, surrounded by rings of open interseptal loculi. 
In sections of the stems the trabeculz are well developed, but not crowded. 
This coral is described by Mr. Quelch as being easily distinguished from the “ Porites 
mordaxz” of Dana, from the same locality. The growth-form is different, and the living layer 
is much less extensive. But there is evidently a strong family likeness between all of these 
Sandwich Islands forms. The calicles of this type, at least where the walls are thin, are very 
like those of Porites Sandwich Islands 6 and 7, yet all differ in finer structural details. A 
strong family likeness between corals from the same locality has been frequently noticed 
in these Catalogues. 
It is worth noting that while the calicles opening in the stroma on the tops of the stems 
are separated by thick reticular walls, those which are fully formed and ranged at the sides 
of the stem, have their walls thin and sharp; when these again thicken and become reticular, 
the reticulum is more rigid, and seems here and there to show slight traces of its formation 
out of an inner synapticular wall, although the reticulum in thickening stems would usually 
be due to the appearance of intervening tissue.* 
This is one of the few Indo-Pacific Porites which show some approach to the characteristic 
method of branching seen in the West Indian forms. 
a. Zool. Dept. 86. 12. 9. 312. 
b (in spirit). Zool. Dept. 80. 11. 25. 217. 
Mr. Quelch’s figure of an enlarged calicle shows the fusion of the septa, but they are 
drawn as if fusing regularly into six pairs, whereas the fusing is that typical of Porites, as 
described in the Introduction, p. 13 (fig. 1, B). 
Professor Studer mentions a stock, from Hawaii, 20 cm. broad and 12 cm, high, which he 
thinks to be of the same kind as this. 
* See on this appearance of reticular walls in specimens of Porites, Introduction, p. 15. 
