If, 4 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
depth, radiating into numerous lamellae, forming a widely-branching 
arborescent polypier, externally striated, internally furrowed, and 
truncate at the extremities. The animals are actiniform, furnished 
with numerous cleft 
tentacula, in the centre 
of which is the poly- 
gonal mouth. Tn the 
Lobophyllia, the tenta- 
cola arc cylindrical, the 
cells conical, sometimes 
c-longated and sinuous, 
with a sub-circular open- 
ing terminating the few 
branches of the polypier, 
which is fixed, turbinate, 
and striated. The Plan- 
tain Madrepore, M.plan- 
taginea (Lamarck), is 
an interesting example ; 
the polypier presenting 
itself, as in Fig, 77, in 
tufts, with slender and 
prolific branches. 
In Madrepora pod' 
mata, vulgarly named 
Fig. 77. Madrepura plantngiuea (Lamarck). Neptune’s Car, We have 
a large and beautiful species, whose expanding branches are flat, round 
at the base, and forming in lobes, whose length is often as much 
as three feet high, with a breadth of twenty inches, and a thickness 
of two to two and a half : this fine madrepore is found in the Caribbean 
Sea and among the Antilles. 
Porites. 
The Porites are madrepores produced by a pitcher-shaped fleshy 
animal, with twelve short tentacula; the cells are unequally polygonal, 
imperfectly defined, slightly radiating by thread-like pointed rays, 
with prickles placed at intervals. The polypier is polymorphous or 
many-formed, composed of a reticulated and porous tissue, the indi- 
