Aplysina laevis, Gunther & Dallas & Carruthers & Francis, 1885

Gunther, Albert C. L. G., Dallas, William S., Carruthers, William & Francis, William, 1885, The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Including Zoology, Botany, and Geology, Reptiles and Batrachians from Brazil, LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.; KENT AND CO.,; WHITT AKER AND CO.: BAILLIERE, PARIS: MACLACHLAN AND STEWART, EDINBURGH: HODGES, FOSTER, AND CO., DUBLIN: AND ASHER, BERLIN: TAYLOR AND FRANCIS, pp. 1-96 : 201

Aplysina laevis , n. sp.

Specimen smooth, solid, cylindrical, curved, compressed; in form something like the free end of a large black legumi ­ nous pod; free end round, the other truncated or broken off, as if it were the upper portion of a much longer curve. Con ­ sistence hard. Colour dark black-purple outside, lighter within. Surface smooth, covered with a thick almost leathery dermis charged with sand or foreign microscopic objects; without conuli saving a slight trace of obtuse eleva ­ tions, becoming corrugated when dry. Pores scattered plenti ­ fully over the surface, but closed by contraction, and therefore not easily distinguished. Vents also not seen, from the same cause probably. Fibre stout but scanty, composed of dark amber-coloured keratine cored with the usual grey grauulofloccnlent substance, which, on shrinking under desiccation, leaves a hollowness; but the fibre itself, from its thickness, does not collapse. Sarcode of the parenchyma inspissate, densely charged with foreign microscopic objects like the dermis, traversed by the branches of the excretory canal ­ systems, which, participating, probably, in the general con ­ tractile nature of the soft parts, present a small appearance. Size of specimen 3| in. high by 2 x in. horizontally.

Hab. Marine.

Loc. Port Phillip Heads, South Australia. Depth?

Obs. The most striking point about this species of Aplysina is its smooth surface and leathery dark dermis, being without conuli and any projecting filaments of the fibro-skelctal struc ­ ture; after which, and perhaps not less remarkable, is the large amount of foreign microscopic material with which the species is charged; and, lastly, its form, although this may differ in other specimens. The fibre does not collapse on drying, on account of the keratose cylinder being so thick, which, of course, lessens the diameter of the core, and thus makes it as much like the fibre of a Luffaria as that of an Aplysina , which, in other respects, its characters most resemble, and hence its name and location. Liq. potassas at first heightens, and then dissolves out the colouring-matter.