MALAYAN PORITES. 173 
clumps. Small calicles opening on the papille appear to be shallow ccenencyhmatous cups 
raised above the general surface. The septa and all the internal skeleton are obscured at 
the surface by the great numbers of tall echinulate rods with frosted tips, which seem to fill up 
the apertures of the calicles. Their radial arrangement, however, can be made out, for the 
interseptal loculi are usually distinct, and the septa can be seen as broad stout flakes. The 
pali can generally be made out as an irregular ring of small bunches of echinule. The 
formula seems to be uncertain, the taller principals being most developed, the rest remaining 
variable. The fossa is irregular, and with a large tubercle forming its floor rather deep down. 
The section shows a very irregular arrangement of stout but discontinuous horizontal 
elements closely packed together. The trabeculz are not conspicuous as radial rods; they vary 
much in thickness, being mostly thin. 
The colour of the unbleached coral is a greenish-grey, suffused here and there with a 
rose-pink. 
This coral is closely paralleled by P. North-West Australia 4; the ramparts in that coral 
show the same delicate filigree texture as here, but the flakiness of the septa is not obscured by 
the tall echinulate rods, and the specimen is an erect tuft. In this form we have only 
fragments of small colonies creeping on the surface of a tangle of old broken-down stems which 
may at one time have begun as small branching tufts. 
Very remarkable is it (so remarkable indeed, that it is difficult to keep from believing 
that some accident has led to the mixing up of the specimens), that we have a variety of this 
form from the China Sea (see under the next heading), which is structurally similar to two 
small fragments above recorded as a variety of P. North-West Australia 4. These fragments, 
being very small, were not separately described. They not only show the same structure as 
P. China Sea 10, but also the same tendency to form horizontal explanate discs, growing out 
freely, with the coral forming the top surface and a Bryozoan the under surface. 
a, Seven fragments of a tangle of dead 
branches with small colonies and Zool. Dept. 92. 10. 17. 92. 
parts of colonies creeping over them 
173. Porites China Sea (1910. (P. Sinensis decima.) (Pl. XXVI. fig. 9; Pl. XXXV. fig. 10.) 
[Macclesfield Bank, 17 fathoms, coll. Bassett-Smith ; British Museum. | 
Description—The corallum rises into small loose tufts of thin, bent and angular branches 
which freely fuse together ; as the tufts die they form a tangle upon which the new growths 
rest. Stems or branches frequently send out horizontal or drooping explanate plates. The 
branchlets vary from 6-10 mm. in thickness, and the living layers vary from 6-7 cm. deep. 
The calicles are 1 mm. in diameter, conspicuous chiefly because sunk down between 
ramparts. The walls are built of stout, mostly horizontal flakes, drooping a little on each side 
into the calicles, From the surface of the walls reticular round-topped ramparts arise, which 
