50 
Colonies from Stations 123, 299, and Djampea are referable to this species. Each is 
comparatively slender and tall and shows a much branched capitulum; most of the branches 
have lobes which vary in length from short outgrowths about 1 or 2 mm. long to elongated 
narrow twigs 1 cm. long. The broadest twig was 4 mm. in breadth, but the average breadth is 
2.5 mm. The polyps are monomorphic and fairly crowded. The spicules include enormous spindles 
up to 6 or 7 mm. in length and about 1 mm. in breadth, and numerous clubs (a common size 
0.2 X 0.05 mm.). The relatively large heads of these clubs bear about half-a-dozen diverging 
sharp points which tend to curve upwards, a feature markedly characteristic of this species. 
The largest of three white colonies from Station 123 rises to a height of 8.5 cm., of 
which 6.15 cm. is occupied by the sterile stalk, which has a maximum breadth of 1.3 cm. 
One of three cream-coloured colonies from Djampea, 17 fms., with a total height of 
4.8 cm., shows two sub-equal stems arising from a shallow somewhat convex stalk, probably 
surrounding a stone. This mode of growth somewhat resembles that figured by Miss Pratt. 
A shorter colony, proportionately stouter, 3.9 cm. high, from Station 299, shows a short common 
stalk from which three main stems arise, one of which early subdivides into two main branches 
giving origin to the numerous polyp-bearing twigs. 
Two other white colonies from Djampea, at the same depth, (the larger with a height 
of 5.5 cm. and a stem with diameters of 1.3 and 0.5 cm.) show the same slender branched 
mode of growth and enormous spindles up to 7 mm. long; but the clubs are rather divergent 
from the more typical forms with diverging sharp points, the majority showing blunter warts 
more nearly at right angles and approaching the S. polydactyla type. 
A brown withered small colony from Station 322 shows typical branching and spiculation. 
Previously recorded from shallow water, Hulule, Male Atoll, Maldives, Gulf of Manaar, 
Zanzibar, Red Sea, Andamans. 
5. Similaria dura (Pratt). 
For description see: E. M. PRATT, Alcyonaria of Maldives, Part II, Fauna of Maidive and 
Laccadive Archipelagoes, Vol. II, 1903, p. 528, 4 figs. 
Stat. 133. Lirung, Salibabu-island. 36 M. Mud and hard sand. 1 Ex. 
Stat. 250. Kur. Reef. 1 Ex. 
Stat. 299. io°52 / .4S., I23°i'.iE. 34 M. Mud, coral and Lithothamnion. 5 Ex. 
This very characteristic hard species is marked by the following features : 
[a] enormous tuberculate spindles, up to about 7 mm. in length, are abundant, and sometimes 
can be seen projecting; 
( b ) the numerous small clubs have very strongly developed heads with knobs projecting at 
right angles to the shaft ; 
(r) the autozooids are proportionately few, and somewhat distant. (But in our specimens they 
are not ‘very minute’ as Miss Pratt describes. This is not borne out however by her 
figures). The siphonozooids are indistinguishable save as small caeca from the superficial 
transverse canals. 
Two very different types of growth, both recorded in the original description, are seen 
in our specimens. 
