80 MADREPOBARIA. 



There are five specimens (parts of two stocks) in the National Collection. They are 

 interesting as being more nearly dendroid than any other known Goniopora, and, moreover, the 

 growth-form cannot in this case be traced to the bending up and curling round of tongues of 

 thin explitnate growths such as appears to be the case in the other two known branching tufts 

 described above (see G. Great Barrier Beef IS and G. China Sea 5). I think this growth is a 

 further development of the forms described under the next heading, that is, from the columnar 

 growth-form, see Diagram E, fig. 2, p. 24, of the Introduction. 



The shallow calicles with obscured radial symmetry seem to be common to other Singapore 

 forms. See the observations on p. 84. 



o. Zool. Dept, 78. 4. 1. 9. 



b, c. Parts of a. 

 d. „ „ 78.4.1.8. 



- . Part of d. 



Purchased from Herr Gustav Schneider of Basle. 



50. Goniopora Singapore (6) 2. (PI. VI. figs. 1 and 2 ; PI. XII. fig. 13.) 

 [Singapore ; British Museum.] 

 Goniopora malaccenm, Briiggemann (partim), Abh. Nat. Ver. Bremen, v. (1878) p. 54f. 



Description. — Corallum columnar and flattened laterally, with smooth vertical sides and 

 evenly rounded tops. The columns fork to form irregular clusters of smaller columns, which 

 may be alive for nearly 16 cm. on the outer but only 6-7 on the inner surfaces ; a delicate 

 pellicular epitheca appears at intervals. The dead lower portion of the outer surface is 

 frequently grown over by a descending edge. 



Calicles irregular in shape, angular and subcircular, from 2-2*5 mm. diameter, uniformly 

 shallow. The walls, when simple, are very perforate, often hardly straight, and with a distinct 

 close but irregular zigzag (fig. 1). Where the walls are thicker, e.g. at the angles, and 

 irregularly along single sides of the calicles (fig. 2), they are neatly reticular. The 24 septa are 

 rough or jagged processes, symmetrically and uniformly arranged in the thick-walled calicles, 

 at least round the walls, but as so many ragged points on the younger calicles (fig. 1). The 

 typical septal formula can be made out where the septa unite with the large columella! tangle, 

 whicli fills the floor of the more regular calicles as an open granular reticulum. But in the 

 younger calicles the whole skeleton is a light open reticulum of thin threads and flakes witli 

 large meshes, and in this it is impossible to make out even any radial symmetry (fig. 1). In 

 this part the meshes of the columellar tangle are as large as the interseptal loculi, and the 

 former is mainly differentiated by the flaky character of its skeletal elements. From the 

 surface of the more differentiated columellar tangle an arrangement of twisted branching 

 threads, visible to the naked eye, represents the pali, but their symmetry largely disappears 

 under the pocket-lens. 



