MALAY AECHIPELAGO UONIOPOK.K. 79 



The author says that this coral differs from Litharcea aflinis Reuss (see Gonivpora Jain 

 Sen 2), in that the calicles are smaller, the granules at the sides of the septa are smaller and 

 do not unite across the interseptal loculi, and the septa of the second and third cycles do not 

 typically fuse together. A further difference is pointed out on p. 77. Unfortunately the 

 photographs given by Martin are not very clear, and his drawing on pi. xxvi. fig. 9 is rather 

 too diagrammatic. 



49. Goniopora Singapore (6) 1. (PL V. fig. 9 ; PI. XII. fig. 12.) 



[Probably Babbit Island, Singapore ; British Museum.) 



Bhodarcea kgrmasi, Brilggemann (non M.-E. & H.) Abh. Nat. Ver. Bremen, v. (1878) p. 547 (Bee 

 p. 70). 



Description. — Corallum a large, low, branching tuft, 25 cm. high, stems round and thick, 

 2-3 cm. and dividing about every 2-3 cm. The short, thick, round-topped branchlets with a 

 strong tendency to curve. They frequently flatten before redividing. The living layer, 

 10-12 cm. deep. No pellicular epitheca covers the dead basal parts. 



Calicles vary greatly in size, average 3 mm. (with double calicles 4-5 mm.) ; everywhere 

 shallow and open, but deepest round the growing tips ; irregularly polygonal or angular. The 

 walls are very irregular and rise to different heights, often not even straight; either thin, 

 fenestrated, and sharp with serrated edges, or thick and solid-looking, and running into 

 irregular angles and points, with hardly any trace of symmetry, except over older basal 

 portions, where the edges are regularly serrated by indications of septa. The septa are very 

 thin, and appear thread-like from above, bent and curved, and fusing irregularly, and with 

 hardly any visible radial symmetry. They seem to start at any angle from the walls, and 

 form an open irregular network. The tertiaries can be seen most frequently bending round 

 in quadrants to fuse with the secondaries. In the calicles at the tips the columeUar tangle 

 is hardly differentiated from the light open reticular fusions of the septa, but it gradually 

 becomes more and more pronounced, until in a lateral calicle (fig. 9) it is a large solid plate, 

 gradually closing the open rounded or angular interseptal loculi till they are a mere ring of 

 small holes close round the wall. The radial symmetry of the calicle becomes most pro- 

 nounced upon this columella. At first thin, ragged, and irregular pali appear, and gradually 

 thicken into stout coarse knobs running outwards along the septa towards the wall. The star- 

 like symmetry seen by the naked eye tends to vanish when it is examined with a pocket-lens. 



In sections of the branches the axis is seen to be an open longitudinally streaming flaky 

 reticulum, and this comes to the surface at the rounded tips of the branches. Bound this 

 axial reticulum the radial trabecular are fairly distinct. Delicate tabula? run close under the 

 surface, showing that the calicles are shallow. 



Some light may be thrown upon the exact locality of the coral from the fact that there is 

 a fragment of a dead base of exactly the same kind of stock in the Cambridge Museum 

 (coll. Bedford and Lanchester) with a label which runs, " Babbit Island, Baffles Lighthouse, 

 outer edge of reef; not many corals." 



