Verrill, Notes on Radiata. 553 



ing the whole sui-face, while at other times red or purplish spicula 

 predominate at the surface, giving this hue to the whole coral. It is 

 a low, thickly branched, rather rigid species, the branches arising sub- 

 pinnately and ascending. The branchlets are roundish, slightly taper- 

 ing, generally with obtusely pointed or rounded endfe. The cells are 

 small, not })rominent, often sunken, evenly scattered over the surface, 

 except along a narrow, ill-defined naked space on each side of the 

 branches, which sometimes shows a slight groove. 



Color purplish red or brown, with or without a tinge of sulphur 

 yellow ; reddish or purplish with a circle of sulphur-yellow around 

 the cells ; or yellowish more or less mixed with purplish or reddish at 

 the surface. Axis black. 



Height 2 to 5 inches ; breadth about the same ; length of terminal 

 branchlets "25 to 1*50 ; diameter '10 to 'IS. 



The spicula are mostly small and blunt, bright rose-red or light 

 purplish, mixed with bright yellow. The longer double-spindles are 

 not numerous, rather oblong, stout, blunt, with about three crowded 

 whorls and a terminal cluster of low, rough warts. The stouter 

 double-spindles are numerous and of various forms, mostly short and 

 thick, obtuse or rounded at the ends, with about two crowded whorls 

 of rough warts on each end ; some have a very narrow median space ; 

 others a well defined one ; many short stout spicula have but one 

 whorl of warts each side of the median, with rounded terminal clusters ; 

 minute ones of the same kind are abundant. There are also numer- 

 ous rough heads and double-heads, of various sizes. The spicula are 

 smaller and blunter, or more rounded, than in L. rigida and L. cuspi- 

 data, and there are none of the stout acute double-spindles, that are 

 abundant in those species. 



The longer double-spindles measure -132'"'" by -042, -102 by -042) 

 •096 by 036, '084 by -036 ; the stouter double-spindles -102 by -048, 

 •096 by -048, ^084 by ^048, '078 by '042, -072 by -048; the heads 

 •072 by ^060, ^072 by '048, -060 by -048, -042 by ^042 ; the double- 

 heads •OeO by 048, -042 by -036. 



Corinto, Nic, at low water, both yellowish and purplish varieties, 

 common, — J. A. McNiel ; Gulf of Nicoya, by pearl divers, small yel- 

 lowish variety, — J. A. McNiel; Tehuantepec, Mex., — Dr. Sumichrast 

 (Chicago Acad.) ; Acapulco, — A. Agassiz ; Guaymas, — Dr. E. Palmer 

 (Chicago Acad. Science). 



Eugorgia nobilis, var. excelsa Vemii, page 409. 



This variety forms fan-shaped fronds and grows to a very large size, 

 some of the specimens exceeding in height those of any other species 



