﻿78 MADREPORAEIA. 



58. Montipora edwardsi. (PI. VIII. fig. 3 ; PI. XXXIII. fig. 14.) 

 ? Montipwa multilobata, Milne-Edwards and Haime, Ann. d. Sci. Nat., xvi. (1851) p. 58. 



Description. — Corallum consists of tufts of columns rising vertically from an irregular 

 platform. The columns are thin and roughly circular at their bases (0 • 5 to 1 • cm. thick), 

 but thicken as they rise, having all the appearance of consisting of clusters of digitate 

 processes grown together into compact bundles. The tops, 6 to 7 cm. high, are very papillate, 

 swell out into irregular knobs wliich fuse with those of adjacent columns and form another 

 irregular platform. Wlien the lower platform is dead, the columns die down in regular stages, 

 a white film separates the living from the dead ; tliis film appears to go through the sub- 

 stance of the coral as a kind of tabulate plate, only the projecting edges of this plate curl 

 up a little way like an epitheca ; below the film, the ccenenchyma is quite bare and only 

 differs from that above in being corroded. The films appear at intervals of from 1 to 3 cm. 



Calicles star-shaped, vary greatly in size. On the smooth lower sides of the columns 

 they are minute (0 • 5 mm.), shallow, and inconspicuous. On the papillate tops of the columns, 

 where the ccenenchyma is growing rapidly, they are deep, conspicuous, and some • 75 mm. in 

 diameter. Primaries thick and well developed, the upper directives often very pronounced 

 and exsert. A second cycle sometimes represented by a few well developed septa, but 

 seldom complete. 



Ccenenchyma. The axial streaming layer is reticular and is not very sharply marked 

 off from the cortical layer whicii is also reticular. Thin trabecular threads may, however, be 

 traced in it ; these rise into jagged echinulte at the surface. The swollen knobs at the tops of 

 the columns appear to be due entirely to the rapid upward growth of the axial reticulum 

 which shoots into tall, round and swollen papillae which appear as if squeezed out from the 

 narrow interstices between the calicles and rise 2 to 3 mm. high. Small level patches full of 

 calicles are here and there surrounded by towering masses of these papiUse. 



This papillate Montipore differs from all the rest in the fact that the papHlce are con- 

 fined to the fused tops of the columns. This is doubtless due to the fact that as the columns 

 rise and thicken, the hollows between the papillae round their bases and sides fill up and the 

 columns become smoother. 



As in the last type, the papUlag are swoUen as if forcibly squeezed out from the narrow 

 interstices. 



The single specimen was labelled M. crista-galli by Briiggemann, from the Eed Sea. 

 This is hardly in accordance with Dr. Klunzinger's redescription and photographs of 

 Ehrenberg's types. I thought myself at first that it might be the M. multilobata of MUne- 

 Edwards and Haime. I was, unfortunately, unable to find that type in the Paris Museum, 

 but I saw there a very beautiful series labelled crista-galli, showing so many variations in 

 growth that it is quite possible one of them was Milne-Edwards' multilobata, and this series 

 appears to be closely related to the specimen in our National Collection. 



