THE 



GIWLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. X. 



No. II.— FEBRUARY, 1913. 



I. LOPHOPBYLLUM AND C rATHAXONlA : REVISION NoTES ON TWO 



GENERA. OF CARBONIFEROUS CoRALS.' 



By B. G. Carruthers, F.G.S. 



(PLATE III.) 



rpHREE years ago when I was discussing certain Carboniferous 

 1 Corals from Arctic regions the opinion was expi'essed that the 

 genus Lophophyllum of Milne-Edwards & Haime had been erroneously- 

 interpreted by palaeontologists, and that in reality it included Thomson 

 and Nicholson's well-known genus Koninckophyllum? The main object 

 of the present communication is to substantiate this view with 

 illustrative sections from topotypes, accompanied by some further 

 observations on the genus. At the same time the opportunity is taken 

 to deal with several points in the morphology of the similar genus 

 Cyathaxonia ; in the latter case the work is in the nature of a pre- 

 liminary note rather than of a formal revision. Pending the appearance 

 of a general memoir on the British Carboniferous Corals, it seems 

 desirable that these notes should be published without further delay, 

 as all these genera are commonly met with in zonal work. Most of 

 the material has come either froni the Geological Survey Collection 

 or is in my own possession, but Dr. Vaughan has always been very 

 helpful, while I have to thank Dr. T. F. Siblj' for some unusually 

 fine examples of Cyathaxonia from Matlock. Other specimens of this 

 genus, from Yorkshire, have very kindly been sent to me from time to 

 time bj' Dr. A. Wilmore, often at some personal inconvenience. 



LOPHOPHYLLUM. (PL III, Eigs. 1, 2, 3.) 



The genus Lophophyllum was founded by Milne-Edwards & Jules 

 Haime in 1850, when they published a description and figures of the 

 genotype, L. konincki, in their monograph Les Polypes Fossiles des 

 Terrains Paleo%oiques? The figured specimen was sent to them by 

 de Koiiinck from Tournai, and is now apparently lost, since it could 

 not be found amongst other figured material of theirs examined by 

 the writer in 1907 at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. 



^ Communicated by permission of the Director of the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain. 



, ■ " A Carboniferous Fauna from Nowaja Zemlja," by G. W. Lee, D.Sc, 

 with notes on the Corals by E. G. Carruthers: Trans. Eoy. Soc. Edin., 

 vol. xlvii, pt. i (No. 7), p. 152, 1909. 

 ^ Loc. cit., p. 349, pi. iii, figs. 4, 4a. 



DECADE V. — VOL. X. — NO. II. 4 



