60 ME. J. T. JOHifSoiT OK THE [Jan. 17, 



2. Pleubocoeallium madeeense, sp. nov. (Plates V. & VII. 

 figs. 1 & 4.) 



Branching luxui'iantly in one plane to the seventh or eighth 

 degree of subdivision. Ramification close, dense. Branches 

 irregularly flexuose, not auastoniosing. The ultimate branches, 

 when stripped of their cortex and cells, are seen to taper to a fine 

 point. 



The white axis is hard, compact, elhptical in transverse section, 

 and its surface is smooth. The thin cortex is coloured a pale 

 ochraceous yellow when the coral is fresh from the sea. Its 

 surface is minutely papillate or granular. The polype-cells or 

 calycles are very numerous and are all seated on the anterior 

 aspect of the branches, mostlj^ at their sides or at the tips of the 

 ultimate branchlets. They are prominent, cylindrical, about 2 

 millim. long and 1 millim. in diameter. Their sides are marked with 

 eight vertical ribs, and the mouths are surrounded by eight upright 

 bundles of spicula forming an oval termination of the cell. The 

 polypes have an orange colour. 



f'ive forms of spicula are found in this species, viz. : — (1) numerous 

 double carafes with two necks ; (2) a few of the short two-whorled 

 cylindrical rods or staves ; (3) irregular rayed balls ; (4) elongate, 

 cylindrical, fusiform or clavate, tuberculated ; (5) cruciform. All 

 these agree more or less closely with the correspondingly numbered 

 spicula of the preceding species. (See Plate VII. figs. 1 & 4. ) 



If the spicula alone were regarded, this species is more closely 

 allied to the first than to the third species here described, but it is 

 widely separated from the former by habit and coloratiou. From 

 the following species, which agrees with it in coloration, it is dis- 

 tinguished by its much greater degree of ramification and the 

 consequent greater density and delicacy of the branches ; by the 

 smooth, not striated surface of the hard axis under the cortex ; by 

 the form of the polype-cells, which are cylindrical, not hemi- 

 spherical and x\-art-like ; by the presence in the cortex of 

 irregularly formed ball-like spicula and of a few cruciform 

 spicula ; and finally by the absence of the smooth form of double 

 carafe spicule. 



Only a single specimen of this very beautiful coral is known, and 

 that was obtained so lately as the summer of this year (1898) by 

 the Rev. Padre Ernesto Schmitz, late Director of the JEpiscopal 

 Seminario, Funchal, from a fisherman who told him it had been 

 brought up a few days previously by a fishing-line from deep 

 water off Camara de Lobos, a village six miles to the west of 

 Funchal. The specimen has been placed in the Museum of the 

 Seminario, and a short description of it will now be given *. 



The base is wauting, the stem having been broken away from 

 it. The height of what remains is 30 centim., or about 12 inches, 



^ For copies of the pbotographs of the entire corals from which the iihis- 

 trations on Plates V. & VI. have been taken, I am greatlj' indebted to the 

 kindness of the Eev. Padre Ernesto Schmitz, the founder of the Seminario 

 Museum, Funchal, and for many j'ears its indefatigable curator. 



