ACALBPH^3. 227 



appearance; it is now a compound polyp. The tube is branched, 

 and the orifices from which the polyps expand usually dilate into 

 cups or cells. This is the condition of the Tubulari-campanulariadse 

 groups, which are numerous round our own coast and in the Channel. 

 The Tubularia are plant-like and horny, rooted by fibres, tubular, and 

 filled with a semi-fluid organic pulp ; polyps naked and fleshy, pro- 

 truding from the extremity of every branchlet of the tube, and armed 

 with one or two circles of smooth filiform tentacles ; bulbules soft 

 and naked, germinating from the base of the tentacles; embryo 

 medusiform. " Some modern authors," says Fredol, " assure us that 

 the tree-like form of these polyps is a degraded and transitory 

 form of the Medusae. The Medusa originates the polyp, the polyp 

 becomes a Medusa." Tubularia ramea so perfectly resembles an 

 old tree in miniature, deprived of its leaves, that it is difficult to 

 believe it is not of a vegetable origin ; it is now a vigorous tree in 

 miniature, in full flower, rising from the summit of a brown-spotted 

 stem, with many branches and tufted shoots, terminating in so many 

 hydras of a beautiful yellow or brilliant red. T. ramosa, of a brownish 

 colour and horny substance, rising six inches, is rooted by tortuous, 

 wrinkled fibres, with flexible, smooth, and thread-like shoots, branching 

 into a doubly permeate form. In T. indivisa the tubes are clustering ; 

 its numerous stems are horny, yellow, and from six to twelve inches 

 in height, about a line in diameter, and marked with unequal knots 

 from space to space, like the stalk of the oat-straw with the joints 

 cut off. Their lower extremity is tortuous, attaching itself readily to 

 shells and stones in deep water, flourishing in deep muddy bottoms, 

 and upright as a flower, fixed by the tapering root-like terminations of 

 its horny tube : a flowering animal, having, however, neither flower 

 nor branch. At the summit of each stem, a double scarlet corolla is 

 developed of from five to thirty-five petals, in rows, the external one 

 spreading, those in the interior rising in a tuft ; a little below, the 

 ovarium appears, drooping when ripe like a bunch of orange-coloured 

 grapes. After a time the petals of the corolla fade, fall, and die, and a 

 bud replaces them, which produces a new polyp ; and so on. This 

 succession determines the length of the stem. Each apparent flower 

 throws out a small tube, which terminates it, and each addition adds 

 one joint more to the axis, which it increases in length. 



The Campanulariae differ considerably from the above, the ends of 



Q 2 



