﻿ANACROPORA. 175 



in the valleys between the protuberant calicles, but on the sides of these they are longer and 

 coarser, and radiate outwards as flat and erect flakes ; these reach a great size in the exsert 

 flakes forming the septa. 



There are four specimens : one (d) is a long thin stem which gives off a few branches at 

 right angles (a young stock) ; the other three are older and their thicker stems are matted and 

 fused irregularly. They appear to have lain almost flat on the ground, touching it at several 

 points. The fusion, with the stock, of detached fragments can also be easily detected. 



This species differs greatly from any other yet described, and is interesting on account of 

 its creeping method of growth. Its yellow-brown colour is that common to many of the 

 Montipores from the same locality. 



a. Macclesfield Bank, China Sea, 32 fathoms. H.M.S. ' Egeria.' (Type.) 



h, c. „ „ „ Coll. Bassett-Smith. 



d. A thin (? young) stem. „ 



5. Anacropora solida. (PI. XXXIV. fig. 20.) 

 Anacropora solida. Quelch, Chall. Rep., Reef Corals (1886) p. 170, pi. x. figs. 7, 7a. 



Description. — Corallum consists of stems with open branching at very wide angles, the 

 stem bending away wherever a branch is given off. Stem cylindrical, of very uniform 

 thickness, from 5 to 6 mm. The branches are tapering and thornlike, 4 mm. thick at their 



Calicles hardly visible to the naked eye, scattered, raised on very slight eminences, the 

 apertures being faintly tilted in the direction of growth. The aperture may be either sharply 

 circumscribed and more or less symmetrically petaloid, • 5 mm. in diameter, or else a mere 

 irregular break in the surface without definite shape or symmetry. Parts of two cycles of 

 septa seldom symmetrical, and not, as a rule, developed round the aperture ; only down in the 

 fossa can both cycles be seen. The primaries are thick and well developed, lamination being 

 confined to the directives ; the secondaries as mere points indenting the rounded outlines of 

 the petaloid interseptal loculi. Even with a pocket lens, the young calicles are dif&cult to 

 find on the young thornlike branches. 



The axial strand of the ccenenchyma is a rather close but delicate reticulum which 

 appears filamentous but is very flaky. The cortical layer is denser, and appears to consist of 

 flakes which are built up on the surface by the formation of granules which branch out over 

 the surface. The frosting of the stems largely consists of these branching flakes parallel to the 

 surface. As the axial strand is never more than 2 mm. in diameter, and gradually diminishes, 

 owing to its progressive solidification from the circumference inwards, the stems are, com- 

 paratively speaking, very dense. 



There are two fragments of this type, which, but for the method of branching, might be a 

 true Montipore. The calicles are very slightly protuberant, and the lamination of the radial 



