284 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Test consisting of one or more branching tubular columns springing from an adherent 
base. Basal portion convex, spreading, or tubular ; column straight or irregularly bent, 
of nearly uniform diameter ; branches ascending, somewhat thinner than the column, the 
distal extremity of each swollen or subglobular. Walls thin, arenaceous, beset with 
sponge-spicules, especially near the distal extremities. Height, from the base to the 
summit of the branches, T \)th to £th inch (2 ’5 to 6 mm.). 
The test of Haliphysema ramulosum is generally of much larger dimensions than that 
of Haliphysema tumanowiczii, but the distinctive character of the species is the branching 
habit of growth. The length of the column before the first subdivision takes place, and 
the number of branches produced, are alike variable. In Dr. Bowerbank’s original 
figure the columns are short and have no more than three or four branches apiece ; in 
the specimen now figured, 1 PI. XXVII, A. fig. 6, the column is abnormally long, and 
exhibits sixteen or seventeen terminal heads. 
An even more striking peculiarity than the branching habit is the growth of several 
pedicels from the same expanded base, a feature well represented in the original figure. The 
beautiful drawings in Prof. Moebius’ memoir, referred to in the synonymy, which have 
been assigned by the Rev. A. M. Norman to this species rather than to Haliphysema 
tumanowiczii, admirably illustrate the same multiple condition. In Dr. Bowerbank’s 
plate, which represents a fragment only, the base is apparently tubular, — a sort of 
creeping stolon giving off the erect pedicels at intervals; but Moebius figures, loc. cit., 
pi. i. fig. 3, a specimen with a convex base very similar in character to that of 
Haliphysema tumanoiviczii, only more outspread, from which spring three columns, one of 
them simple and undivided, a second with two branches, and the third with three 
branches. It by no means follows that this is an invariable condition, and there is 
nothing to show whether the large multiramose specimen figured in PI. XXVII, A. had 
originally an independent foot, or was one of several pedicels attached to a common basal 
chamber. _ Until more is known of the structure of the basal portion in cases where there 
are a number of columns, and of the connection subsisting between them, it is difficult to 
say whether the collective test should be regarded as a colony, or as an individual 
organism, of which the columns are analogous to the branching arms of some other 
arenaceous Foraminifera. 
With respect to the minute structure of the walls of the test, the particulars already 
given in the description of the type apply equally to the present species. The projecting 
spicules, especially those that beset the distal extremities, are not directed forwards in a 
brush-like tuft, as commonly seen in the clavate forms of Haliphysema tumanoiviczii, 
but radiate in all directions. 
Mr. Carter informs me that in habitat, not less than in mode of growth, 
1 This is the specimen alluded to by the Key. A. M. Norman, — Monogr. Brit. Spongiadse, vol. iv. p. 38. 
