124 
very short; supporting bundle very weak ; point spicules about 8 pairs, equal in size; crown 
absent; grade II; spicules: short sterile stalk has irregularly branched, almost stellate, sclerites; 
spindles of the branches often very large (6 mm.) ; colourless spindles in the general cortex 
and stars at the base. 
Anthocodial Grade and Formula : 
II = 8 p ~F o Cr -j- very weak S. B. 
Descriptive Notes: 
Colony as a whole. Very handsome umbellate colony with profuse root-work; hardly 
visible sterile stalk; a much branched and, in its general aspect, distinctly flattened polyparium. 
It is 32 cm. in maximum height and 40 cm. in maximum breadth, with an approximate 
thickness of 6 cm. The contour of the whole colony is markedly interrupted. 
Branching. There is a general division into three strong branches each of which tends 
to lose the flattened aspect, broadening out into an exuberant corymbose head. The polyp¬ 
bearing twigs are distinct umbels. There are no definite large hemispherical bunches. Large 
areas on the branches are bare and exposed. The basal branches are foliaceous, but do not 
form a complete circle. The main branches give off numerous secondary and tertiary branches, 
which eventually break up, with fairly regular dichotomy, into minor corymbs, bringing the 
crowded polyps more or less up to one level. 
Colouring. The exposed areas on the branches are covered with irregularly scattered 
spindles, visible to the naked eye and giving the surface a glistening white appearance. On the 
twigs are large orange and crimson spindles, standing out conspicuously against the general 
white of the cortex. There seems to be no regularity in the distribution of the two colours, 
except that any one group of twigs is either orange or crimson. The supporting bundles are 
also either orange or crimson, but the polyp spicules are white. 
Polyps stalks are very short. The polyps themselves occur in small bundles of 7 — 12, 
and the stalk of each bundle is long. The anthocodial armature consists of about 8 pairs of 
spicules en chevron on each of the eight points, all practically of the same size, about 0.13 mm. 
Below the point there is no true crown, but there are small white spindles on the soft polyp 
stalk, lying irregularly but on the whole transversely and quite distinct from the coloured 
spindles of the supporting sheath which lie longitudinally. It is plain that the uppermost rows 
of these transverse spindles might furnish the raw materials of a crown. 
The supporting bundle is of the ensheathing type and is often very inconspicuous. The 
typical form is a curved triangle around the polyp stalk, composed altogether of about a dozen 
spicules, and^those composing the tip are not conspicuously longer than the rest. It is what might 
be called a slightly differentiated supporting sheath rather than a supporting bundle, and its 
comparatively small spindles must not be mixed up with the large supports of the common 
stalk of the bundle. The supporting bundle only occasionally projects a little beyond the polyp. 
Its component spicules do not attain a length of more than 0.75 mm. 
Other spicules. Very noteworthy is the spiculation of the short, sterile stalk, where for 
a very limited area the spindles are replaced by irregularly branched, almost stellate, sclerites, 
which interlock and give the surface an arenaceous appearance. Many of the branchlet spindles 
are striking in their size, reaching a length of 6 mm. They are densely covered with truncated 
