160 MADREPORARIA. 
2 cm. long before they again prepare to fork. The living layer reaches down about 6 cm. 
The lower edge is usually closely encrusting, showing also signs of creeping. 
The calicles are small, about 1 mm. in diameter, but, except round the bases of the stems, 
conspicuous. The walls are broad, flat flakes, upon which tall, thin, very ragged median ridges 
arise, which form the apparent walls separating the calicles. These are the trabecule, the tops 
of which are about to expand into the next layer of flakes. The septa are stiff, irregular 
tongues of these flakes, without any radial symmetry, with a few gashes or pores, representing 
a few of the interseptal loculi. There are different layers of these septal tongues, and 
when pali form, granules rise from their tips. Some may arise from the top, and others 
from a lower layer. The ring, when developed, is large and the pali few, but, owing to the 
obscurity of the radiation, the formula can hardly be made out. The fossa is sometimes open, 
very deep, and fairly sharply circumscribed, at others it is quite irregular. Here and there, 
the wall ridges are themselves broad, ragged flakes, and, in the abseuce of the radial symmetry 
and of the fossa, the whole surface is a confusion, in which calicles can hardly be recognised. 
The cross section shows very thick concentric elements, with very slight trabeculae. The 
texture is not dense. 
This is one of the branching Porites with its horizontal or concentric skeletal elements 
chiefly developed. Table III. shows how many there are now known, while a reference to the 
descriptions and figures will show how different are their growth-forms. It may be the same 
coral as that referred to by Professor Studer * from Amboyna as “P. saccharata.” But 
the growth-form is different, and further the P. saccharata of Briiggemann comes from 
Singapore. There is no similarity between the growth-form of this coral and that of Dana’s 
“ Porites palmata,” which, I gather from Dana’s figures (see p. 162), has the same principle of 
structure. 
a. 2 single detached stems and 1 fragment. Zool. Dept. 86. 12. 9. 313. 
Another specimen was obtained by H.MLS. ‘ Challenger’ from Banda, and was called by 
Mr. Quelch P. Gaimardi M.-E. & H. (see Chall. Rep. xvi, p. 183). It is very insuffi- 
ciently described, simply as a thick, erect, rather elongated mass, slightly flattened above. 
The cups are said to be 1:5 mm. wide, and the columella very distinct, though small. For an 
account of P. Gaimardi M.-E. & H., see p. 90. 
* Mittheil. Naturw. Gesell. Bern., 1880, p .25. 
