TRIBE II. CARYOPHYLLACEA. 365 



Coralligenous Caryophyllacea ; polyp-mouths long exsert, tentacles 

 oblong. Coralla within not transversely septate, surface not lamello- 

 striate ; cells with the margin acute and thin ; lamellae nearly or 

 quite entire. 



Among the various forms of the Caryophyllida?, we observe trees 

 occasionally five or six feet in height shrubs and bushy clumps of 

 various dimensions convex masses covered with cylindrical calicles 

 clusters of large leaf-like expansions enrolled in one another and 

 tiny cups of goblet shape. Hemispherical domes like those of the 

 Astrseas are not met with; and the folia are rather thick and cellular, 

 with large curves and an obtuse polypiferous edge, instead of thin, 

 sharp-edged, and compact, with the graceful arabesque forms of the 

 Merulinse. 



The polyps of this group were first observed and figured, though 

 incorrectly, by Donati. They have since been examined by Cavo- 

 lini, Lesueur, Quoy and Gaymard, Ehrenberg, Broderip, Milne 

 Edwards, and others. They are distinguished in most if not all in- 

 stances, by having the mouth very much protruded when fully ex- 

 panded, sometimes so as to form an inverted cone rising from the 

 centre of the disk. The tentacles are clustered around the prominent 

 mouth, in a crowded circlet. 



This family includes a part of Lamarck's genus Caryophyllia, along 

 with his Oculinae, and TurbinaliaB, and some other fossil species. As 

 the CaryophylliaB of this author have been variously distributed by 

 different writers, a tabular view of the subdivisions proposed by the 

 principal systematists in this department of science, is here given, with 

 the genera adopted in this work. The genus Oculina, which has 

 participated somewhat in the various changes, is also added, together 

 with those genera of Astraacea which Lamarck's genus embraced. 



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