116 
Locality.—Eocene clays of the Adelaide bore, South Australia. 
Collected by Professor Tate. 
GENUS PARACYATHUS. 
Paracyathus Tasmanicus, spec. nov. PI. ii., figs. 4a, 5. 
The corallum is almost, occasionally quite, straight, and 
cylindro-conical in shape. with an expanded calice and a very 
broad flat base, which affords evidence of having been attached 
to a foreign substance. The calice is elliptical and concave, with 
a deep central fossa. The relative lengths of the major and 
minor axes of the ellipse are as 100 to 86. 
The costz are continuous with the septa, and more conspicuous 
in the superior than in the inferior portion of the corallum. The 
epitheca is pellicular and thin. 
The septa have rounded upper margins, and are thickest at 
the wall, above which they rise to varying heights, according to 
cyclical order. They are in six systems, with four cycles. In- 
the example figured the quaternaries are wanting for half of one 
system; another example shows the systems all complete. The 
primaries and secondaries are sub-equal in size, and the higher 
orders become successively both smaller and shorter. All the 
septa have numerous pointed granules on their sides. There are 
distinct pali before all the orders except the last, the youngest 
reaching higher in the calice than the secondaries, and these 
again than the primaries. Several smaller pali towards the base 
of the fossa are hardly distinguishable from the papilli of the 
columella. Both the pali and the columella are well preserved in 
the figured calice, which belongs to an aged example, but the 
septa are worn and largely connected by growth rings. In fact, 
the outer portion of the septal area is much filled up by calcareous 
matter, to which Lindstrém has applied the term steveoplasma. 
That the presence of this in such a position in the calice is not of 
classificatory importance is insisted upon by Duncan,* and its 
occurrence in the fossil coral here described fully supports his 
views. Two other examples (one of which is the corallum 
figured) have the septa perfect, and the calices entirely free from 
any such growth; but as in both cases the pali were partly 
broken down in clearing the fossa from sediment, their calices 
would not serve so well for illustrating the characteristic features 
of the species. Other poorly preserved specimens are also to 
hand, several of which are free from stereoplasma, while one or 
two of them show its presence to some extent. 
* Revision of the Families and Genera of the Madreporaria. Journal 
Linn. Soc., Zoology, vol. XVIII., p. 27, 1884. 
