rAMILIES AND GENERA OE THE MADRBPOEAEIA. 



63 



Group-Genus AXOSMILIA. 



Simple corals with entire septa, an essential styliform columella, a well- 

 developed epitheca and endotheca. 



Genus Axosmilia, Ed. & H. 



G-enus Axosmilia, Milne-Tldwards ^ Jules Haime, Cornet. Bend, 

 de VAcad. des Sci. t. xxvii. p. 467 (1848). 



The corallum is simple, free in adult age, tall, turbinate or 

 conical. Calice circular and deep. Columella essential, styli- 

 form. Septa entire, not exsert, and some unite with the columella. 

 Epitheca complete and membraniform. Endotheca moderately 

 developed in the deep interseptal loculi. 



Distribution. — Fossil. Oolitic, Jurassic : Europe. 



2. Subfamily Astrceidce reptantes. 



(The Astrangiacese, Ed. Sf H.) 



Colony composed of short corallites which arise by gemmation 

 from stolons or basal expansions, which may or may not contain 

 sclerenchyma. Endotheca moderately abundant. Septa both 

 entire and denticulate, llarely gemmation from the corallite 

 wall. 



The living polypes of a form belonging to this group, Cylicia 

 rubeola, Quoy & Gaimard, stand up higher than the calices, and 

 the disk is well rayed, and within the margin are little slender 

 tentacles surrounding a long mouth witb incised margins (Milne- 

 Edwards & Jules Haime, Hist. Nat. des Corall. vol. ii. p. 607, 

 1857-60, from Quoy & Gaimard, Yoy. de 1' Astrolabe, Zooph.). 

 Verrill states (' Notes on Eadiata,' p. 526) that Astrangia pali- 

 fera, Yerrill, has subpellucid polyps which rise considerably 

 above the calices : the tentacles are long, slender, and covered 

 with white verrucse, with a knob at the end. 



The corallites may be close or rather distant ; and in the first 

 instance the bases often overlap, and the gemmation seems to 

 have been from the very basal edge. In one group {Coenangia) 

 the gemmation is partly as in Cladocora, and is from the wall 

 of the parent corallite, and. the cavities of the bud and parent 

 communicate. 



The small colonies of the Astrceidce reptantes are readily dis- 

 tinguished from any other forms of the family by their method 



