i8 CALCAREOUS ALGAE OF THE MIDDLE EAST 



simple, long, not ramified, akrophorous branches. Reproduction probably endo- 

 spore ". ' The branches are namely by no means ' gegen aussen deutlich erweitert ', 

 as in Salpingoporella, Pianella, Macroporella, as well as do not incline to shut out- 

 wards as in Oligoporella. They are namely intermediate between the two types ". 

 (Praturlon 1964 : 177). 



Acroporella assurbanipali sp. nov. 

 (PI- 1. %• 5) 



i960 Macroporella sp. ; Elliott : 222. 



Description. Cylindrical tubular calcified dasyclad, external diameter 1-36 mm., 

 internal diameter 0-55 mm. (40% of external) ; successive near-horizontal verticils, 

 probably 3 or 4 per mm. of tube-length, of perhaps twelve radial branches each. The 

 single branches communicate with the stem-cell cavity by a pore of about 0-052 mm. 

 diameter : they then swell out to a fig- or flask-shaped cavity of 0-182 mm. maximum 

 diameter, narrow to a slightly curved tube of 0-078 mm. diameter, and at the outer 

 surface flare out to a shallow terminal diameter of 0-156 mm. 



Horizon. Subsurface Lower Cretaceous of Iraq. 



Holotype. The specimen figured in pi. 1, fig. 5 from the subsurface Garagu 

 Formation (Valanginian-Hauterivian) of Kirkuk Well no. 116, Iraq. V. 52032. 



Remarks. Acroporella Praturlon (type-species A. radoicici Praturlon 1964) is a 

 primitive form from the Lower Cretaceous of Italy, apparently of somewhat inter- 

 mediate branch-characters, though well figured and described by him. The Kirkuk 

 specimen exactly fits his general diagnosis for branch -structure, rather better than 

 the type-species, in fact, but the thallus shows more than double the dimensions of 

 the Italian species, and the shape of the peculiar branches is unique. It is therefore 

 made the type of a new species. The exact orientation of the curved branches 

 relative to the cylinder-axis is difficult to make out from the long tangential section : 

 the swollen portions may have housed the sporangia in life. 



The specific name commemorates a king of ancient Assyria, within whose former 

 boundaries Kirkuk now lies. 



Genus ACTINOPORELLA Gumbel in Alth 



Diagnosis. Verticils of several straight radial calcareous tubes, approximately 

 in the same horizontal plane, separate for most of their length but meeting centrally 

 in a calcareous ring, each hollow tube communicating by a single pore with the 

 central cavity. 



Actinoporella was created by Gumbel (Alth 1882), with type species Gyroporella 

 podolica Alth (1878), which came from the Portlandian of Podolia (Cushman & 

 Glazewski (1949) ; then in Austria, but subsequently in Poland and now included 

 in the U.S.S.R.). This alga, represented by little impressions and hollow moulds of 

 the verticils, was studied and reconstructed by Pia (1920 ; 1927) loose solid 

 specimens from the same area have been seen by me. Each verticil shows numerous 



