55 



Spicules. These are heavy plate-like forms of various shapes, but usually polygonal. 

 Their surfaces are covered with heavy rounded verrucae so thickly compacted as to be often 

 contiguous. Some of the smaller ones are radiate, stellate or cruciform. The larger ones some- 

 times attain a length of .6 mm. 



Color. The specimen is a dull purplish or purplish brown, due largely to the presence of 

 the sponge. The nodes are dark brown and the internodes ivory white. The spicules are colorless. 



A few fragmentary specimens from station 310 are free from the sponge growth. They 

 are partly creamy white and partly pinkish In one fragment the axis is a deep rose color, 

 and the polyps seem to be of the same color. 



General distribution. The type locality for this species is Soolo Sea. It has also 

 been reported from Mauritius, Banda Sea, Australia, Formosa and the Indian Ocean. 



2 . ? Parisis minor Wright and Studer. 



Parisis minor Wright and Studer. Challenger Reports, the Alcyonaria, 1889, p. 1884. 

 Stat. 139. oii'S., I2725'E. 397 meters. Mud, stone and coral. 



A single specimen, representing the terminal part of a colony is referred with doubt to 

 this species. The fragment is 3.7 cm. long, and was broken off from the colony just below a 

 node which is incomplete and bears on its distal end a bifurcated internode. One of the resultant 

 branches bears a lateral branchlet on its proximal internode and bifurcates r.5 mm. from its 

 proximal end, or at the end of the first internode. One of the resultant branchlets is a mere 

 stub. The other is 2.5 cm. long and has adhering to it a piece of a branchlet from a missing 

 branch. The other main branch bifurcates twice, the furcations being Y-shaped rather than 

 U-shaped. Its distal internode is longest, measuring 17 mm. The calyces are nearly all lateral, 

 but a few are on the anterior face of the colony. 



The individual calyces are in the form of truncated cones, a typical one measuring 

 .8 mm. in height and 1.5 mm. in diameter at the base. The calyx walls are filled with coarse, 

 heavily tuberculate spindles which are exceedingly irregular in arrangement. Sometimes they 

 are disposed horizontally and at other times those around the margin are vertical, forming a 

 rude series of irregular jagged points. The polyps are very heavily spiculated, with a relatively 

 narrow collaret above which a group of heavy spindles are placed almost vertically at each 

 tentacle base, forming a series of eight points. The polyps are retracted to their collarets and 

 the infolded tentacles form a conical mass which completes the cone-shape of the calyx. 



Spicules. These are heavy spindles with short branched verrucae not in whorls. They 

 are not so large as in P . fruticosa and their branching is much more evident. A number of 

 more slender thorny spindles are found in the polyps. Although not so regular in form as 

 represented by WRIGHT and STUDER'S figures, they agree with them fairly well in essential features. 



Color. The specimen described is grayish white in color. 



General distribution. The type locality for this species is Hyalonema grounds, 

 Japan 345 fath. 



