116 MADREPORARIA. 



109. Porites z. 7. {Porites incertw sedis septima.) (PI. XV. fig. 1.) 

 [Coll. Lamarck ; Paris Museum.] 

 Syn. Porites conglomerata van 3 Lamarck, Anim. sans Vert. ii. (1816) p. 269. 



Description. — The corallum rises as a low solid group of short thick stems, either springing 

 from the surface of an explanate base or else with a common base arising from tlie confluence 

 of the bases of the separate stems. These latter are 2 cm. thick, and about 4 cm. long. Their 

 tops divide irregularly so that short thick terminals radiate from them in all directions, often 

 compressed and curving. The living layer is 7 cm. deep. 



Tlie calicles are 1 • 25 mm. in diameter, angular and superficial ; on the flattened tops of 

 many of the thicker terminals they open in an undifferentiated reticulum. The walls are 

 thin and raised just enough to trace a fine polygonal network over the surface. The septal 

 granules are conspicuous as a ring between the wall and the pali, but are not seldom joined to 

 the wall. There are usually 6 to 7 pali, as prominent granules, with a columellar tubercle. 

 The whole surface seems to be uniformly covered with granules. 



This is the substance of the rather brief descriptive notes made on specimen Z 187 d in 

 the Paris Museum. Attached to the specimen is a very old parchment label, wliich showed 

 that it was the " Porites conglomerata var. 3 " of Lamarck. In Milne-Edwards and Haime's 

 Monographic des Poritides (1851), as also in Les Coralliaires iii. (1860), one of these 

 varieties of Lamarck's conglomerata was placed as a synonym of P. clavaria. The confusion is 

 certainly very great, but I remember quite satisfying myself that this was the variety so 

 treated by Milne-Edwards and Haime. 



As to the locality, once more we have a branching form far more suggestive of a West 

 Indian than of an Indo-Pacific home. 



110. Porites x. 8. (Porites iruxrtcB sedis octava.) 

 [ ? Fiji Islands, coll. Wilkes Expedition, 1838-42 ; ? ] 

 Syn. Porites cylindrica Dana, Zooph. (1848) p. 559, pi. liv. fig. 4. 



Description. — The corallum forms compact bundles of long, wavy, neatly cylindrical 

 stems, 12 to 16 mm. thick, which fork at very small angles and at long intervals. The 

 terminals with rounded tips may be 2 • 5 cm. long and 8 mm. thick. Living layer, 2 • 5 to 5 cm. 

 deep ; stocks 15 to 20 cm. high. 



Calicles superficial, quite indistinct. 



This is one of Dana's types, probubly from the Fiji Islands. There is no known Fiji form 

 with whicli it can at pre-sent be associated. 



