TRIBE I. ASTR.EACEA. 277 



and scarcely compressed, at apex of branchlets, lax and attenuated; 

 lamellae granulous. 



Plate 17, fig. 1, corallum, natural size; I a, one of the conelets, 

 enlarged ; 1 b, animals, enlarged ; 1 c, part of a transverse section of 

 stem, enlarged. 



/ 



Feejee Islands. Exp. Exp. 



This species forms crowdedly branched clumps a foot high. The 

 branches are irregularly angular, owing to the conical prominences 

 that cover them. The cones are close in contact at base, and are 

 nearly an eighth of an inch high, and the same in breadth. The 

 branchlets are two or three inches long, and subacute, and the cones 

 above become lengthened and oblique, and have a looser texture, re- 

 sembling the preceding species. The branches are a third to half an 

 inch in diameter. The corullum is very compact, and in this respect 

 the species differs from the MonticulariaB, which it resembles in its 

 surface and polyps. 



GENUS XII. ECHINOPOR A.- LAMARCK. 



Astrceidce exphnatce aut cumulato-ramosce, polypis prominulis, perpen- 

 diculariter insitis, gemmatione marginibus (non discis] prolatantibus 

 (Orbicellis ajjines). Corolla striata, et echinulata, fere solida ; cali- 

 culis convexis, echinulatis. 



Explanate or cumulato-ramose ; polyps a little prominent, placed per- 

 pendicularly with the surface of the zoophyte; the margin and not 

 the disks widening by growth, in budding (as in the Orbicellce). 

 Coralla striate and echinulate, nearly solid ; calicles convex, echi- 

 nulate. 



The Echinopora grow in much stouter folia than the Merulinse, 

 and have scattered cells over the surface instead of furrows, on account 

 of their budding in the widening upper margin, instead of the disks, of 

 the polyps. The coralla are distinguished by their finely echinulato- 

 striate surface, and slightly prominent rounded calicles. The foliated 

 species and ramose have the same relation as explained in the remarks 



70 



