| OCR Text |
Show 136 MR. G. H. FOWLER ON A NEW PENNATULA. [Feb. 21, autozooids, which are devoid of tentacles. Siphonozooids richly set all over the ventral surface of the rachis except in the median ventral groove, one row running from this surface halfway up the concave borders of the leaves, while a second row passes dorsally and anteriorly between the leaves to meet with the row of immature autozooids on the latero-dorsal surface. Leaves triangular in outline, charged with long, fusiform, salmon-pink spicules. The colony, as is so frequently the case with Pennatulida, is imperfect above, the top presumably having been bitten off and the wound scarred over. The dimensions given below are therefore in some points unreliable. The colour of the greater part of the colony is of a beautiful salmon-pink, shading off to a whitish yellow on much of the stalk and rachis, and also in the centres of the leaves-parts where the spicules, to which the colour is due, are more thinly scattered. The stalk, which expands slightly below, is on its upper third expanded into the bulbous enlargement so constantly met with in the genus, and is here of the same brilliant salmon-pink tint as the polyps and leaves. The rachis is marked both dorsally and ventrally by a deep groove which is entirely free both from siphonozooids and immature autozooids. The siphonozooids (fig. l)are placed mainly on the ventral surface of the rachis, where they are roughly arranged in oblique ventro-dorsal rows. They are especially massed at the bases of the leaves, from which points start two rows of siphonozooids, the one running about halfway up the concave (lower) border of the leaf itself; while Fig. 1. A young leaf showing the triangular shape, the dorsal row of immature autozooids, and the ventral row of siphonozooids appearing as small spikes. Natural size. the other passes upwards on the rachis between the leaves, and, bending still further upwards, generally meets the line of immature autozooids at an acute angle on the latero-dorsal surface of the rachis, close to the line of attachment of the leaf next above. The siphonozooids are not separable into two types by size or other character, and are indistinguishable from the immature autozooids at the point |
