FAMILFES AKD GET^EEA Or THE MADEEPOEAEIA. 27 



Banda Island, East Indies, 60 fms., whicli he allies with Bun- 

 cania. The species was described from one specimen only*, 

 whicb, however, is well preserved. The following is the generic 

 diagnosis : — " Corallum conical, attached by its side ; entirely 

 covered by a thin, plicated, coloured, bark-like epitheca, which 

 rises higher than the margin of the calicle. Wall of the calicle 

 very thin, except near the margin, where a zone of stereoplasma 

 is developed, soldering together the onter regions of the septa 

 where they arise from the wall. The lower part of the calicle 

 devoid of stereoplasma or other filling. The columella composed 

 of several flattened pillars." 



In the description of the species we learn that the epitheca, in 

 its upper region, is thrown into a series of longitudinal costal 

 folds, which are equally developed and only very slightly promi- 

 nent. The rounded edges of the primary and secondary septa can 

 just be seen above the level of the margin of the calicle. The 

 wall is very thin. The columella is formed of four flattened ^^il- 

 lars, fused together below, but free at their tips, and it projects 

 in the fossa. Height of specimen 8 millim. 



Stereoplasma is a name given by Lindstrom to a substance 

 which connects septa (environing their free edges in some Palaeo- 

 zoic corals), stretches across interseptal loculi irregularly, and 

 sometimes fills up the lower part of the inside of the corallum, 

 constituting a solid mass there. It is to be distinguished from the 

 true endotheca. Its presence as thin, solid, membrane-looking 

 layers is excessively variable in the same species, and it is only 

 of classificatory importance when it fills up the bases of corallites 

 or accumulates near the wall in the interseptal loculi, to diminish 

 the calibre of the coral within, and to add to the strength and 

 thickness of the walls. 



The presence of an epitheca is not of generic value ; and the 

 longitudinal folds mentioned in the description of the species 

 above are in the position of costse. 



The adhesion by one side is remarkable, and is often the case in 

 Guynia, but it is not generic. 



Keferstein and E. de Eromentel have both utilized this generic 

 name. 



The generic characters of the form are the conical and pedun- 



* Eeport on Corals, Deep-Sea Madreporaria, 'Challenger,' Zool. vol. ii. 

 p. 159 (1881). The provisional title to this beautiful volume does not give the 

 name of the author, H. N. Moseley, F.E.S.^ 



