560 ZOOPHYTES. 



Forms very closely crowded clumps of erect stems, six inches or 

 more high, very slightly flexuous or straight, and neatly cylindrical. 

 It is peculiar in being alive only for an inch or two, and in its indis- 

 tinct stars without any appearance of cells. It has the general habit 

 of the conferta, but differs in its more regular stems and in the ab- 

 sence of excavate cells. 



B. Ramis plicatis aut crispis. 



12. PORITES CONTIGUA. (Esper.) Dana. 



P. cespitosa, crebro ramosa, superne conveza, 2 J" animata ; ramis com- 

 pressis, lobatis-crispis, et angulatis, apice 1^3'" crassis, obtusis. Co- 

 rattum robustum, cellis nullis, pord minutissima inconspicud (lynceo 

 inspecta) per granulas subtilissimas sex drcumdata, granulis aliis 

 sparsis. 



Cespitose, crowdedly ramose, above convex, alive for 2i inches ; 

 branches compressed, crispate, lobed and angular, 1 to 3 lines 

 thick at summits, obtuse. Corallum firm ; cells none, a very minute 

 indistinct pore (seen by a lens), surrounded by six granules, other 

 granules scattered. 



Plate 54, fig. 6, part of clump of corallum, natural size ; 6 a, surface, 

 enlarged. 



Feejee Islands. Exp. Exp. 



Forms low even-top clumps, a foot broad or more, and ten inches 

 or so high, very crowdedly branched; the branches are angular, 

 nodosely subdivided, and often subflabellate and plaited above. It 

 resembles the Psammocora obtusangula (Pavonia of Lamarck), but 

 differs in its less neatly plicate branches, and fundamentally in the six 

 points which surround the polyp-pores of the corallum, and prove its 

 connexion with the Madrepore family. 



Mad. contigua, Espcr, Fortsetz. i. 81, Pavonia plicata, Lamk., ii. 378, No. 6. 

 tab. 66. , Blainville, Man., 365. 



