Annals of the South African MuseumAnnale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum . , 1905Dendronephthya Kukenthal, 1905: 667. Utinomi, 1952: 161; 1954: 319. Diagnosis Colonies are bushy and arborescent with a prickly or bristly growth form is umbellate, glomerate or divaricate. Polyps arranged ingroups. Each polyp has a conspicuous supporting bundle of sclerites that usuallyprojects far above the polyp. Sclerites are primarily tuberculate spindles. A very large genus of over 250 described species, distributed in the Red Seaand the Indo-Pacific. Type species. Nephthya savignyi Ehrenb
Annals of the South African MuseumAnnale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum . , 1905Dendronephthya Kukenthal, 1905: 667. Utinomi, 1952: 161; 1954: 319. Diagnosis Colonies are bushy and arborescent with a prickly or bristly growth form is umbellate, glomerate or divaricate. Polyps arranged ingroups. Each polyp has a conspicuous supporting bundle of sclerites that usuallyprojects far above the polyp. Sclerites are primarily tuberculate spindles. A very large genus of over 250 described species, distributed in the Red Seaand the Indo-Pacific. Type species. Nephthya savignyi Ehrenberg, 1834, by subsequent desig-nation; Red Sea, Indo-Pacific. Remarks At least four undetermined species of this genus occur in Natal betweenDurban and Kosi Bay, 12-50 m in depth (Williams 1989a: 142; in press). Tixier-Durivault & Prevorsek (1962: 70) described Dendronephthya muta-bilis as Morchellana mutabilis from the Durban region of Natal, at 64-91 m indepth. Verseveldt (1960: 511) described Dendronephthya inhacaensis from 336 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM. Fig. 42. Scanning electron micrographs of Capnella thyrsoidea (Verrill, 1865). A-I. Scleritesfrom polyp bases. A. 0,29 mm. B. 0,17 mm. C. 0,28 mm. D. 0,24 mm. E. 0,09 0,25 mm. G. 0,40 mm. H. Detail of surface tuberculation from sclerite shown in F; totallength of micrograph = 0,07 mm. I. 1,0 mm. J-L. Sclerites from surface of stalk. J. 0,10 mm. K. 0,09 mm. L. 0,10 mm. SOFT CORALS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA 337 Inhaca Island, southern Mozambique; depth not recorded. The two species canbe distinguished as follows: D. mutabilis has supporting bundles of one largeprojecting spindle whereas in D. inhacaensis the supporting bundles arecomposed of 3-5 large projecting spindles. Genus Litophyton Forskal, 1775 Litophyton Forskal, 1775: 139. Bayer, 1956: 188; 19816: 913. Ammothea Savigny in Lamarck, 1816: 410. Litophytum Agassiz, 1848: 616. Kukenthal, 1903: 105. Shann, 1912: 511. Light, 1915: 1. Diagnosis Colonies arborescent,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsouthafr, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1898
