-PLATE CLXIL 



those" which from their exterior bell-shaped form, and depression or 

 erater-like hollow within, had previously obtained the name of 

 " Le Gohclet" and of which genus the present object, Madrepora 

 Cyathus of Linnaeus, constitutes the type and first species. But, 

 besides this species, it comprehends also as well those which are 

 solitary as those which are fasciculated, and thus the character be- 

 comes too general in our opinion to be implicitly adopted. The 

 distinction of the stem being simple, can scarcely bear a sufficient 

 definition where some species are single and others fasciculate. 

 Lamarck defines the genus thus, " Tiges simple soit solitaires soit 

 JascicuUes " 



The resemblance which this curious and very elegantly- shaped 

 Madrepora bears in form to certain infundibuliform or bell-shaped 

 flowers, is not very remote, and if we except the lamellous appear- 

 ance of the interior, the assimilation is rather intimate. We are 

 to remember also, that the Agarics and other orders of the Fungi 

 family are really furnished with gills, and may afford us, in their 

 inverted position, an approximation in their general structure yet 

 nearer than the exterior form. The ancient botanists, the naturalist 

 is aware, considered those Coral bodies as beings of vegetable origin; 

 they were the " flowers of the sea " among those writers, and really 

 while the form and not the substance of which they are composed 

 was alone considered, these writers were in some small measure at 

 least excuseable for this assimilation. 



The species named by Linnaeus Madrepora Cyathus is not the 

 only species of its genus that possesses this habit or character of a 

 flower, rising upon a pedicle or footstalk, by means of which it 



