OCR Text |
Show 1876.] AND LITTORAL CORALS. 435 primary and secondary orders project. There is no columella; and the calicular fossa is very deep. The genus is allied to Desmophyllum, Ehrenberg ; but the absence of exsert higher orders of septa and the dense epitheca separate it from this form. JAVANIA INSIGNIS, sp. n. (Plate XXXIX. figs. 11-13.) The corallum has a broad incrusting base, above which it is smaller and cylindrical, and it expands gradually, being compressed from side to side. The calice is elliptical, and the axes are on the the same plane ; the septa are very unequal; and there are four cycles and part of the fifth. There are twelve nearly equal exsert septa, and twelve tertiaries which are less exsert and smaller. Between these septa there are in some parts three small and well-developed septa, and sometimes two or none. The larger septa are nearly without ornamentation and are thick ; and they approach the long-axis space, deficient in columella. The epitheca is stout and plain inferiorly, but towards the calice it becomes pellicular and arranged in series of transverse festoons. These curve up to the prominent and bluntly serrate costse, which correspond to the septa of the three front cycles. The other septa have no costse. The calicular margin has the epitheca continued to it; and the costse of the primaries and secondaries are exsert and wide, as are those of the tertiaries which form the costal prolongations down the wall. Height li inch. locality. Japanese sea, N. lat. 34° 13', E. long. 136° 13', 48 fathoms. Collected by Capt. St. John. There is some difficulty in classifying the next species, on account of the very arbitrary manner in which certain modifications of the internal parts of the septa are decided to be pali. Pali, in the strict and proper sense should arise from the internal base of the corallite, and should be placed between certain septa and the columella, or the axial space, when this last is deficient. They may adhere to the septa; but in either case the ornamentation and general arrangement of the sclerenchyma of the pali differ from those of the septa. A row of pali infers an extra row of tentacles. But the term pali is given to prominent dentations of the inner margin of septa, or to the inner margins when their dentition differs from that of the rest of the laminae, in Phyllangia for instance. This is not correct: such structures may be termed papillose; but this will not permit of the corallites being classified as having pali. In the species about to be described the inner part of all the septa is more or less peculiarized by broad, widely separated, complicated granulations, or rough papilla?. The linear series of these ornaments simulate pali; but I am not disposed to admit that they are those accessory structures. Were they pali, the form would fairly ^ome near to Gray's Hetero-cyathus, as it stood first of all-not as one of the synapticulate corals according to Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime, but a true member of the old group of Trochocyathacese. |