PLATE CLII. 



IsiS OCHRACEA : stirpe croso-striata lapidea rubra dichotoma ex- 

 planata ramossissima articulata, geniculis nodosis 

 spongiosis fill vis, carne flavescente, oculis stellatis, 

 polypos octotentaculatos obducentibus. Ellis 

 and Soland. Zooph. p. 105. 



This truly elegant and very beautiful shrub-like Coral is a 

 native of the Indian seas, occurring in some plenty and in high per- 

 fection in the vicinity of the Spice Islands. Its usual places of 

 growth are the recesses of the reefs of coral rocks so abundant in 

 those seas, where it resides just below the surface, and is only seen 

 emerging to view above water when the tide is at the ebb. 



In point of size, this remarkable object of curiosity varies 

 materially ; it is seldom more than six or eight inches in height, 

 sometimes twelve inches, but occasionally we have seen it completely 

 of a bush-like form, and three feet or more in height, and in such 

 instances, as it may be conceived, the branches of the main stems 

 become of a greater proportionate thickness, to render them capable 

 of supporting and sustaining in their true form the lesser branches, 

 that expand laterally from the greater ones. 



"When in the living state, this coral is covered with a flesh of a 

 somewhat pulpy texture, and of a yellow or orange colour, or rarely 

 white, and has the whole surface sprinkled with numerous little 

 apertures or perforations of a deep red colour ; these latter are the 

 cells in which the polypes reside. When divested of the flesh, and 



