TRIBE III. MADREPORACEA. 443 



Vase-shaped, fronds very broad, \ to 1^ inches thick; below closely 

 reticulate and complariate ; above with nearly simple branchlets, 

 to 1 inch long, 2 lines in thickness, subacute. Corallum having the 

 calicles of the branchlets imbricate, labellate ; lip somewhat flat- 

 tened, truncate; star indistinct. 



Plate 33, fig. 4, specimen from the Feejees, natural size ; 4 a, frag- 

 ment of same; 4 b, and 5, fragments of specimens from Singapore: 

 plate 31, figs. 6 a, b, c, calicle of Feejee variety, enlarged. 



Singapore and the Feejee Islands. Exp. Exp. 



This species forms shallow, fragile vases, sometimes three feet broad, 

 raised on short pedicels, and bearing above small slender branch- 

 lets, covered closely with thin appressed calicles. The under sur- 

 face of the corallum is naked, excepting a few appressed tubular 

 calicles towards the margin. The delicate branchlets are neatly 

 terete and not proliferous near the summit, though often furcate 

 below, or two or more rising apparently from the same base. The 

 terminal calicle is about three-fourths of a line broad, and not tumid, 

 being an even prolongation of the body of the branchlet ; the other 

 calicles are nearly half a line broad, and about a line and a half long. 

 On the main branches and the bases of the branchlets, the cells are 

 immersed, without calicles, and the texture of the corallum is very 

 spongy. 



In a Feejee specimen, which is but seven inches across, the lip of 

 the calicles is longer than in those from Singapore, and the intervals 

 in the reticulate frond are few and about an eighth of an inch wide, 

 while these intervals in the latter are more numerous and about a fourth 

 of an inch in width. It may be a young specimen of the cytherea. 



/8. abbreviata (fig. 5). In some of the specimens from Singapore, 

 which have the general habit of the preceding, the branchlets (which 

 vary from a fourth of an inch to one inch in length) are much more 

 obtuse, with the apical calicle scarcely at all prominent; the lateral 

 calicles, moreover, are much shorter, and more closely crowded. 



j. eudadia. This name is applied to a specimen resembling, some- 

 what, the preceding; but presenting some peculiarities which may 

 distinguish it as a separate species. The under surface of the frond is 

 remarkable for being covered with stout obsolescent calicles, which are 

 rather crowded, and render the surface uneven. The branchlets above 

 are very neat, regularly tapering, and subacute, about three-fourths of 



