478 A. K Verrill — Revision of the Genera of Starfishes 



flatish, imbricated or closely united, usually covered with 

 small combs or tufts of spinules, sometimes with only one ; 

 these plates form regular oblique rows. Adambulacral spines 

 simple, divergent; in two sets; the furrow-spines form small, 

 usually webbed combs of two to eight. Those on the outer 

 surface are in groups or fans, or like the interactinals. Pedi- 

 cellarise usually lacking ; when present they are two-bladed, 

 erect, forficiform. 



The papular pores are dorsal and form several rows on the 

 median and lateral parts of the rays, and sometimes on adja- 

 cent parts of the disk, but are absent from the more or less 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 1. Asterinides folium (Ltk.) ; a, dorsal side ; b, ventral side, natural 

 size. 



large interradial areas, where the plates assume a different 

 shape and are more closely united. 



There is generally no single dorsal median, radial row of 

 plates ; its place is taken by two to four or more alternating 

 rows ; the larger of these plates have a papular pore under the 

 proximal edge. These larger plates usually show only one of 

 the edges and part of one side ; seen from the inside they 

 appear much larger, often four-lobed, and obliquely imbri- 

 cated. The dorsal plates of the outer interradial areas, in 

 many species, have conical or pillar-like processes extending 

 downward and meeting similar uprising processes from the 



