238 MADREPORARIA. 
248. Porites Red Sea 2. (2. Hrythrew seeunda.) (Pl. XX XIII. figs. 8a, 8b.) 
| Koseir, coll. Klunzinger; British Museum.*] 
Syn. Porites lutea Klunzinger, Die Korallthiere des Rothen Meeres, ii. (1879) p. 40, pl. v. fig. 16. 
Description.—The corallum is massive, often of immense size, convex, humpy, knobbed or 
club-shaped. 
The calicles are shallow, as a rule not half so deep as broad-—1:5-2 mm. across—smaller 
(1 mm.) in the depressions. The walls, which vary in thickness and are slightly echinulate, 
just raised above the level of the septa and pali, sometimes almost obsolete. In the former case 
the walls run as fine, sharp, polygonal lines, here and there ragged, and tending to be reticular. 
Septa twelve, uniform or only slightly unequal, with two to three minute points along their 
thin edges, which are often indistinct. On the other hand, the ring of pali (five to six) is 
always well developed, and visible to the naked eye, inasmuch as they rise above the edge of the 
septa. The columella is deep down in the fossa below the pali, and therefore not noticeable. 
The colour in life is generally yellow, but also bluish, or violet, or else violet above but 
yellow round the base. 
The British Museum obtained a specimen of this coral from Dr. Klunzinger. On com- 
paring it with Dr. Klunzinger’s description given above, I find the calicles are much smaller 
than in the type specimen, the average being hardly more than 1mm. There are, however, 
a great number of double calicles with 24 septa; these reach nearly to 2 mm. in diameter. The 
walls differ also in that when simple, it is a very straggling, interrupted zigzag, when reticular, 
which it mostly is, this zigzag is completely lost, and no trace of a median line or ridge can be 
seen, the reticulum being open, loose, and composed of thin, wavy or angular filaments (fig. 8a). 
The septa are also thin, they unite in the typical manner, and at the same time join a colu- 
mellar ring, which is at no place complete yet looks so when seen from above; the columellar 
tangle consists of this ring from which spokes run to a central rod or tubercle, which is frosted 
like the pali. The interseptal loculi form a symmetrical ring of deep oval holes. In the 
lateral calicles the elements are thicker and the pali well developed (fig. 82). 
This coral differs from P, Red Sea 7 with which Forskal (according to Dr. Klunzinger) 
united it as var. b of his Madrepora solida, in having the shallow calicles and the more 
reticular walls, but the skeletal character of the septa, the large columellar tangle, and the 
symmetrical ring of pali are important features which they have in common. The development 
of the pali appears to be always co-ordinated with that of the walls (see Introduction, p. 18). 
The difference in the heights of the walls is apparently the only important distinction between 
P. Red Sea 1 and 27. On the Porites lutea of Milne-Edwards and Haime with which 
Dr. Klunzinger would specifically associate this coral, see below (p. 244). 
a. From Dr. Klunzinger. Zool. Dept. 86. 10. 5. 25. 
* See note, p. 236. 
+ See observation under the last heading on the specimen of this coral in the Paris Museum. 
