26 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. IV, January, 1950 
often polychrome, gradually shading into dif- 
ferent hues here and there without apparent 
relationship to ecological factors or anything 
else. A few specimens are bluish-violet to 
gray. The first collected was definitely orange. 
1 found no green, yellow, black, white, cr 
any brilliantly colored specimens of this 
sponge. One might say that the color ranged 
from dull orange through mahogany-brown 
to dull lavender. The consistency is spongy. 
If any considerable quantity is available, say 
a good handful, one may discover that this 
species has a definite odor. I have never 
found a similar fragrance in any other sponge, 
nor failed to find it in Zygomycale — some 
half a dozen times that a large quantity was 
at hand. This odor is strongly reminiscent of 
linseed oil, also faintly suggestive of fresh-cut 
grass, not like phosgene, but much more like 
old, oxidizing linseed oil. 
The surface of this species is rather smooth 
but not level, and has a very characteristic 
speckled or punctiform appearance by which 
one soon comes to recognize it. This is due 
to a dermal network of fibers. The latter are 
minute, only about 5 to 10 g thick, and the 
meshes are 65 to 100 /x in size. However, 
even when the unaided eye cannot resolve the 
individual pores or fibers, the over-all appear- 
ance can be recognized. The oscules are about 
2 or 3 mm. in diameter, often provided with 
thin, raised rims. They are uncommon and 
rather difficult to find among obviously acci- 
dental surface openings. 
The ectosome is a definite dermis over ex- 
tremely widespread, nearly omnipresent sub- 
dermal spaces which may be as much as 0.5 
mm. high. It contains the special network 
already mentioned. The endosome contains 
a coarser, but still rather fine-grained, net- 
work of fibers; these fibers are upwards of 
50 /x in diameter and contain about 15 spic 
ules per transverse section. At their distal 
terminations they splay out into dermal 
brushes or tufts. 
The megascleres of Zygomycale are of one 
\J 
Fig. 16. Zygomycale parishii, spicules, from a 
camera lucida drawing, X 666. A, styles. B, larger 
sigma. C, smaller sigmas. D, toxas. E, raphides. 
F, larger palmate anisochelas. G, smaller palmate 
anisochelas. H, palmate isochelas. 
