A monograph of the British fossil corals - kreidefossilien.de

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CORALS FROM THE UPPER GREENSAND. 59
Tribe ASTREIN.^ (p. xxxi).
Genus Parastrea (p.
xliii).
Parastkea stkicta. Tab. X, fig. 3, 3 a.
Corallum composite, forming a mass not very tall, and slightly convex on its upper
surface. Calices seldom circular, in general oblong or irregularly polygonal, projecting
very little, and having always distinct margins. CosfcB delicate, closely set, nearly equal,
almost horizontal, nearly straight or slightly bent, and united by their extremity to those of
the neighbouring corallites, which, however, remain ch'cumscribed by a small furrow.
Calicularfossula shallow.
Columella of a dense tissue, subpapillose, and not much developed.
Septa thin, broad, closely set, terminated by a series of calicular dentations, the last of
which (towards the columella) appears to be more developed than the others ; the number
of these septa seldom exceeds forty, and they are rather unequal. Walls thin, but well
developed. Diameter of the calices, usually between two lines and two lines and a half
distance between the calices, at least half a line.
This species, found in the Greensand at Blackdown, is characterised from a specimen
belonging to the Geological Society ; it differs from all the previously described Parastrea
by the approximation and delicate structure of the septa.
Mr. Morris mentions, in his Catalogue ' of British Fossils,'^ two other species which
have been found by M. Austen in the Greensand at Haldon, and which belong to the family
of Astreidge. M. Austen considers the one as being identical with the Maestricht
fossil coral described by Goldfuss under the name of Astrea clec/ans^ and he refers
the other to the Astrea escharoidci of the same author*. We regret not having had
an opportunity of examining these fossils.
^ Loc. cit., p. 31.
- Petref. Germ., vol. i, tab. xxiii, fig. 6.
3 Goldfuss, op. cit., tab. xxiii, fig. 2 ; fossil from Maestricht.
^ Austen, on the Geol. of the South-east of Devonshire, Trans, of the Geol. Soc, Second Series, vol. vi,
p. 452.