116 MADREPORARIA, 
102. Porites Great Barrier Reef (499. (P. Queenslandie nona.) 
(PL XIV. fig. 9; Pl. XIX. fig. 5.) 
[Palm Island, coll. W. Saville-Kent; British Museum.] 
Description.—The corallum rises into erect but very irregular columns or crests, the top 
forming level ridges, and the sides descending steeply down, either vertically or even over- 
hanging. The living layer streams down 8-9 cm., with edges usually closely adherent. 
The calicles are conspicuous, 1 mm. in diameter, mostly sunk singly or in rows, and down 
the sides in groups between smooth, rounded, ccenenchymatous ridges. On the tops, where the 
ridges are a fine delicate woolly reticulum, the calicle skeleton can be seen to be an arrange- 
ment of its threads, which run down and form the septal edges. On the sides where the ridges 
are coarser and granular, the septa are far thicker, as broad, coarse, frosted flakes projecting far 
into the calicle, and carrying at their tips a conspicuous ring of large, frosted pali, which 
are very variable, and show all the ordinary formule. The interseptal loculi are long, very 
irregular slits which are gashed far back into the ccenenchymatous ridges. The fossa is 
deep, and a minute tubercle can often be seen far down. 
There are three of these ccenenchymatous corals, all from Palm Island, and all with 
substantially the same type of calicles, and yet no two of them are alike in the character of the 
ridge formation. In a the swellings are large, rounded, and run right down the sides, raising 
the whole surface into small subsidiary excrescences. This is the largest and most vigorous 
growth, the top being broken up into angular, flat-topped columns. 
a. Zool. Dept. 92. 12. 1. 278. 
Specimen } has much smaller and less vigorous ridge-formation, and the sides rise up more 
smoothly. The tops of the ndges are a brilliant lake colour. 
b. Zool. Dept. 92. 12. 1. 5. 
Specimen c has quite a different aspect from either @ or }, and but for the similarity in the 
types of the calicles, it would have been described separately. It is a single flattened ridge- 
‘like stock, with its lower edges free and turning outwards. The ccenenchymatous ridges are 
very pronounced, but not as rounded, woolly knobs, for they run together and gyrate over 
the surface. The chief difference is seen in the texture, the elements of the swellings being 
far coarser than in a or 6. Those of Bb are the finest and most delicate. 
c. Zool. Dept. 92. 12. 1. 282. 
103. Porites Great Barrier Reef (4910. (P. Queenslandie decima.) 
(Pl. XV. fig. 1; Pl XIX. fig. 7.) 
[Palm Island, coll. W. Saville-Kent : British Museum.] 
Description.—The corallum rises into flat-topped flame-like columns, with sharp irregular 
ridges running up the sides and standing up as blunt points on the tops of the columns. 
