144 ANTHOZOA ASTEROIDA. 



many, and even recent, authors ; though Ellis had previous to 

 its promulgation,* and also shortly afterwards, demonstrated 

 that there was not only no real resemblance, but such remark- 

 able differences as rendered the hypothesis altogether unten- 

 able.f The pith of the Gorgonia is not continued, as in the 

 tree, from the trunk through the branches, but is interrupted 

 at their origins by several intervening layers of fibres, so that 

 they are rather, as it were, inserted upon the stem than pro- 

 pagations of it ; the axis possesses none of that curious com- 

 plexity of structure. of fibres, of sap and air vessels and 

 utricular cells, which renders the wood so beautiful an object 

 under the microscope ; and lastly, there is between the bark 

 and the crust of the zoophyte nothing but contrasts and dis- 

 crepancies.j 



The axis of a Gorgonia, at least of our native species, re- 

 sembles a tree in this, that the stem always bears a certain 

 proportion in thickness to the size of the polypidom, being 

 slender in the small, and thicker in the larger specimens : it 

 tapers from the root or dilated base, and, becoming gradually 

 more gracile and attenuated, disappears at the extreme points 

 of the branches. It is covered throughout with the flesh, 

 which is the same in structure at all points, but thicker and 

 more loaded with polypes towards the ends of the branches 

 than on the stem or near their base, whence the former gene- 

 rally assume a cylindrical form. This flesh when dry is 

 earthy and friable, a considerable proportion of carbonate of 

 lime entering into its composition ; but in a recent state it is 

 soft and fleshy, and excavated with numerous cells for the 

 lodgement of the polypes. When a portion of a branch is 

 macerated in a weak acid, the lime is entirely removed, but 

 the branch retains its original size and figure, and shows the 

 frame-work to be an irregular close texture of corneous fibres, 

 the interstices of which had been probably filled in part with 

 a gelatinous fluid. And this is much the same structure that 



* Coral. 65. Lin. Corresp. i. 225. PhiL Trans, (an. 1776) abridg. xiii. 721. 



t What then could induce Blumenbach, so late as in 1825, to write thus ? 

 "The stems appear to be really vegetables (the woody nature of which in the 

 larger ones cannot be mistaken) incrusted with corals." Man. of Nat. Hist. Trans. 

 P . 271. 



Ellis and Soland. Zoophytes, 76-79. 



