A, E. Verrill— The Bermuda Islunds; Coral Reefs. 2 
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Gorgonia pinnata (pars) Lamk., Hist., ii, p. 316. 
Pterogorgia pinnata (non Linn. sp.) and P. Sloanei Edw. and Haime, iii, p. 
168, 1857. 
Pterogorgia setosa Ehrenberg, 1834 (purple var.). Dana, Zooph., p. 650. 
Edw. and Haime, iii, p. 168, and many later writers. 
Pterogorgia acerosa Ehr., 1834 (yellow var.}. Dana, Zodph., p. 649, 1846. 
Kdlliker, op. cit., p. 139, pl. xviii, figs. 34, 35. 
Verrill, 1864, and many later writers. 
Gorgonia acerosa Verrill, Crit. Rem., No. 4, p. 424, 1869, and most later 
writers. Hargitt and Rogers, op. cit., p. 287, pl. iii, fig. 2, 1902. 
This beautiful gorgonian, when well grown on the outer reefs, is 
sometimes four or five feet high, with a strong, elastic stem, and 
very numerous long, slender, and very flexible pinnate branchlets, 
which are usually more or less pendulous in the form of a loose 
plume. 
Large specimens often consist of several such plumes arising from 
one base or from one large main trunk near the base. The axis in 
the main trunk and larger branches is large, black, tough, horn-like, 
and often much flattened; in the terminal branchlets it becomes 
capillary or setiform, translucent, yellow or amber color. 
The color is usually light purple or purplish red in Bermuda 
waters, but not rarely light yellow or pale straw-color, or in dry 
specimens long exposed to light it may be almost white. 
Many writers, like Ehrenberg and Edw. and Haime, have made 
two or three species out of what seem to me merely slight variations 
in form and color of this species. 
_ After examinations of large numbers of specimens from Florida, 
West Indies, and Bermuda, I cannot find any reliable characters for 
separating setosa or Sloanet from this species. Very young speci- 
mens have undoubtedly been described under other names, The 
original G. pinnata of Linn. and Pallas appears to be a distinct 
South African species, Lophogorgia or Leptogorgia flammea Ellis 
and Sol., though many early writers have confused it with the pres- 
ent one. Probably Linné himself confounded the two, as Pallas 
stated.* 
The axis of this species was also analyzed by Prof. Mendel and 
Mr. Cook. It was found to contain about 2 per cent. of iodine. 
It is not often found on the inner reefs and is not very common 
in shallow water, even on the outer ones. It prefers water 3 to 6 
* Lamouroux, Exped. Method., pp. 51, 52, 1821, added greatly to the con- 
fusion by uniting under G. pinnata: G. americana, G. setosa, G. acerosa, and 
G. sanguinolenta, while he confounded the true pinnata=flammea Ellis and 
Sol. with the palma of Pallas, which is Hunicella palma. 
