﻿40 MADKEPORAEIA, 



growth and absence of the prominent verrucas." According to the method of classification here 

 adopted these latter are tuberculate Montiporans, and therefore almost the most specialised, 

 whereas the present type belongs to the most primitive group. 



The branching is not true branching but more the running out of free points at any part 

 of the stock into irregular sloping and tufted clumps. There are traces of at least three 

 successive growths ; the dead masses of former stocks can be seen to have had the same methods 

 of growth. 



In general character of the calicles this type is not far removed from M. spumosa (see 

 p. 71). It is doubtful whether this ought not to be placed in the next division (glabro- 

 foveolate) on account of the slight surging up of the interstices. Its smooth appearance (see 

 PI. III.) led to its being placed among the glabrous specimens. 



a. Eodriguez. Eoyal Society. 76. 5, 5. 75. (Type.) 



22. Montipora mollis. (PI. III. fig. 1 ; PI. XXXI. fig. 18.) 



Description. — Corallum either an encrusting layer 1 cm. thick, surface rising into 

 irregiilar rounded nodules and humps, or towering up and expanding into irregular branching 

 and nodulated pillars fusing with one another irregularly. 



Calicles crowded, less than their diameter apart, varying greatly in size, under 1 mm., 

 delicately star-shaped, and sunk in shallow depressions in the apparently woolly surface of 

 the ccenenchyma. Six well developed septa, one of which is generally prominent, exsert, and 

 thick, reaching right to the centre of the caUcle, hence there is no distinct fossa. The 

 interseptal loculi only loosely and irregularly bounded peripherally by the ccenenchyma, points 

 of which may project irregularly into the calicle aperture as the rudiments of the second cycle 

 of septa. 



The ccenenchyma in section shows a rather dense laminate reticulum, low down in 

 encrusting portions, or occupying the axis of the branches in the towering portions. Upon 

 or around this is the thickening layer, the vertical elements of which appear as thin, flat, saw- 

 like trabeculffi with teeth on both sides. On the surface, the tips of the trabecule end as jagged 

 flakes or granules twisted in all directions, free or fusing, terminating at the same level. At 

 the tips of rising nodules or branches, the laminate reticulum, coming to the surface, 

 forms irregular Kne patterns, the edges of the laminse being all on the same level. The 

 interstices tend to swell slightly above the level of the calicle apertures. 



There are two specimens which I have classed together under this head. They are 

 united by the general woolly aspect of the ccenenchyma and by the characters of the calicles. 



The one (a) is an encrusting form some 7 cm. square, while the other (h) is a confused 

 mass of irregular nodulated branches broken off from some unknown base. The mass had been 

 attached at two points, the larger of which is less than 2 cm. in diameter. The tips of the 

 tallest branches of this latter specimen appear as if they had been mechanically hindered 



