CORALS FROM MURRAY, COCOS-KEELING, AND FANNING ISLANDS. 207 



Millepora platyphylla Ehrenberg. 

 Plate 93, figure 2, specimen from Cocos-Keeling Islands. 



1879. Millepora platyphylla Klunzinger, Korall. Roth. Meer., pt. 3, p. 84. 



1910. Millepora (of the type named complanala) F. Wood Jones, Coral and Atolls, p. 102, te.\t-fig. 34. 



Dr. Wood Jones has made the following notes on this form: 



"Color varies from brown to yellow or greenish yellow, it is lighter and brighter when 

 growing luxuriantly; distal margin of the plate palest sulphur yellow or nearly white. 

 Some color is retained in the dead specimens. Lives most luxuriantly on the seaward edge 

 of the barrier, where it is very abundant. The plates spring from an irregular, incrusting 

 base, the first being always opposed to the line of waves and currents. Other plates are 

 added radially. The colonies attain a thickness of 4 to 5 feet in diameter and 3 to 4 feet 

 high." 



Irregular, incrusting, small masses of Millepora, which grow on the most 

 exposed parts of the barrier, are probably referable to this form. 



Millepora truncata Dana. 

 Plate 93, figures 3, 3a, 3^, specimen from Fanning Island. 

 1846. Millepora platyphylla, P truncata Dana, U. S Expl. E.xped., Zooph., p. 548, plate 53, fig. 2. 



Mr. Carl Elschner obtained specimens of this form of Millepora at Fanning 

 Island. It has gastropores about 0.3 mm. in diameter; dactylopores much smaller, 

 but recognizable with the naked eye. It is close to the form to which Dana 

 applied the name incrassata. 



