570 A. E. Verrill — Anthozoa and Hydrozoa of the Bermudas. 



Eunicea grandis, sp. nov. 



Plate LXIX. Figures 3, 3a. 



A very large species, with long, round, thick, digitate or furcate, 

 rigid branches, which taper but little distally and usually lie some- 

 what in one plane, thus forming corals one to two feet broad and 

 sometimes nearly three feet high. Axis nearly cylindrical, dark 

 brown or black, osseous at base. Coenenchyma very thick and hard, 

 filled with fusiform spicules of moderate size. 



Calicles, in dried specimens, not much elevated, usually forming 

 low convex verrucse, with a small, terminal, indistinctly eight-lobed 

 aperture ; sometimes with a large round opening having the edges a 

 little elevated. 



Color when dried brownish black, dark umber-brown, or yellowish 

 brown. In life umber-brown or sepia-brown, sometimes tinged with 

 purplish or yellow. 



The very large exsert zooids expand freely in confinement and 

 then the calicles are more prominent, and evidently 8-lobed. The 

 expanded zooids are swollen, somewhat translucent, dark russet- 

 brown or yellowish brown, paler than the coenenchyma, with a 

 white line on the outside of tentacles, due to spicules ; mouth bor- 

 dered with white. The tentacles are much stiffened by spicules and 

 contract slowly. 



Diameter of main stalk often 2 to 3 inches, at base ; diameter of 

 digitate branches about .50 to .75 inch (12 to 18™™ or more), their 

 length 6 to 12 inches. 



Not uncommon in 6 to 20 feet, on the reefs. 



This species is similar to JE. Rousseaui Edw., in size and appear- 

 ance, but that species has a prominent lower lip to the large calicles. 

 Our species appears to be a larger, much stouter and more branched 

 form. 



Eunicea Tourneforti Edw., Corall., i, p. 150, 1857. 

 ? Gorgonia madrepora Dana, Zooph., p. 671, 1846. 



Plate LXIX. Figures 2, 2a, 2h. 



This species grows in forms similar to the last, but it is smaller, 

 with the branchlets about 7 to 12™™ in diameter. The calicles are 

 more prominent, oblique, with the aperture on the upper side and 

 the lower lip prolonged, as in the calicles of madrepores. 



Color dark umber-brown or black when dried ; dark brown or 

 sepia-color in life. 



