94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. 43. 



described by "Wright and Studer. The polyps are entirely retracted, 

 the calyx walls meeting at the point of the cone. The tentacles are 

 destitute of spicules. There are often two large ova or planulse in the 

 basal part of the calycular cavity. 



Spicules: These are rather irregular disks than spindles, with an 

 oval outline, and coarsely tuberculate throughout. Sometimes they 

 are thickly branched and have an irregular outline. 



Color : The colony is light yellow or creamy-white. The intemodes 

 are brownish. 



Localities.— Station 4893; Ose Saki Light, N. 29° E., 5.5 miles j 

 106-95 fathoms. Station 4894 ; Ose Saki Light, N. 41° E., 5 miles ; 95 

 fathoms. Station 4895; Ose Saki Light, N. 42° E., 4.7 miles; 95 

 fathoms. Station 4935 ; Sata Misaki Light, N. 58° E., 4.5 miles; 103 

 fathoms. Station 4936 ; Sata Misaki Light, N. 21° E., 5.7 miles ; 103 

 fathoms. 



General distribution. — Type-locality, Sulu Sea; ? Mauritius (Ridley); 

 off Kei Islands, 103 fathoms (Wright and Studer). 



Family GORGONIDiE. 



Colony branched, usually flabellate ; axis usually horny, not jointed; 

 calyces lateral; spicules usually in the form of spindles; stem and 

 branches often flattened. 



Genus PLATYCAULUS Wright and Studer. 



Axis with a calcareous center; calyces prominent; spicules spiny 

 spindles and stellate forms. 



PLATYCAIILUS DANIELSSENI Wright and Studer. 



Platycaulus danielsseni Wright and Studer, Challenger Reports, the Alcyonaria, 

 1889, p. 147. 



Colony roughly flabellate, profusely branched ; the branches, but not 

 the axis, flattened. The axis does not show the calcareous center 

 described by Wright and Studer. 



Length 19.5 cm., spread about 18 cm. The stem and proximal 

 parts of main branches are not flattened, although the lateral position 

 of the calyces gives the appearance of a flattening of the branches. The 

 stem is 4.5 mm. in diameter and forks 1.8 cm. from its base. One of 

 the resultant branches is irregularly branched, approaching a pinnate 

 manner of branching, giving off two short simple branchlets and two 

 compound branchlets on one side and three simple branclilets on the 

 other. The other main branch is very profuse and complex in its 

 branching, some of its branchlets being turned down and bound 

 together by parasitic ophiurans. The branches are all lateral and 

 mainly pinnate in then- branchings, the side branchlets being lateral 

 and irregular but usually given off at right angles. Branchings of the 



