82 Dr. C. Liitken on a new Species of Black Coral 



any circumstances the above-mentioned amalgamation of the 

 branches at particular points will not justify us in giving our 

 species a place outside the genus Antipatkes. In this genus 

 A. arctica will take its place among the species whose branches 

 and stems are not very different in thickness (" polypier se 

 subdivisant en branches de divers ordres, qui ne different que 

 peu les uns des autres par leur diam^tre, lequel decroit gra- 

 duellement ") ; but it belongs neither to the species whose 

 branches lie in all possible different planes, and thus form 

 tufted masses (" panicules, touffes ") of different forms, nor to 

 those in which they all lie in the same plane, and form as it 

 were a quadrifid or bipinnate le&i [A.mi/riophi/llaj pinnati/ida). 

 It stands about in the luiddle between these two chief types of 

 the genus, and seems at the same time to point from tliis to- 

 wards Arachnopathes. 



The stem is nearly straight, widening below into a flat ex- 

 pansion, by which it has been attached at the bottom of the 

 sea; its height, in a direct line, is 113 millims., and its dia- 

 meter about 1^ mi Him.; superiorly it decreases very slowly in 

 thickness ; only its lowest portion is smooth, the remainder 

 being covered with somewhat irregular fine furrows ; on the 

 raised lines separating these fiUTOws are seated the short acute 

 spines in tolerably close series (fig. 1). The shining black 

 colour of the stem gradually acquires a brownish tint in its upper 

 part ; its lower part (about 30 millims.) is destitute of branches ; 

 but from the up])er part of the stem there issue on each side, 

 right and left, 10-13 main branches. Except in the uppermost 

 part of the coral, where some irregularity occurs, the points of 

 origin of these main branches are placed pretty regularly, 

 alternately to the right and left. The distance between two 

 branches situated one above the other on the same side is at 

 the utmost 9 millims. On the whole the middle branches are 

 the longest and strongest ; the angle which they form with 

 the stem is not much less than a right angle, and their direc- 

 tion is therefore nearly horizontal. All the branches placed 

 one above the other on the same side lie, at least approximately, 

 in the same vertical plane ; and the angle which those from 

 the two sides form with each other at their origin is only a 

 little more than a right angle ; and as they curve in an elon- 

 gated arc at first forward and then backward, their points 

 come to lie in the same (vertical) plane as their points of ori- 

 gin. If we leave the curvature out of consideration, all the 

 coral's horizontal main branches will therefore lie approxi- 

 mately in the same plane. These main branches are not much 

 less in diameter than the upper part of the stem ; and tliey 

 maintain this character nearly throughout their whole length ; 



