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The Extant Scleractinian Corals of New Zealand

Dendrophyllia japonica Rehberg, 1892. Pl. VIII, figs. 4 & 5. Map symbol ⊕

Dendrophyllia japonica Rehberg, 1892. Pl. VIII, figs. 4 & 5. Map symbol ⊕

1929. Dendrophyllia japonica Rehberg. Gardiner, p. 127, Pl. 1, figs. 1, 2.
page 16

Dendrophyllia japonica is a branching coral, but the branches are irregular and not confined to any one place. Branchings occur from the outer surface of individual corallites. The corallites of the colony superficially resemble the solitary corallum of Balanophyllia alta, but the arrangement of the septa differs in the two species and the basal region of each corallite is usually straight not curved as in B. alta.

The present colony has been formed by branchings upon the outer surface of a large dead corallite with a calice 2.7 cm in diameter. Four of the corallites were living and range in height from 15.0 mm to 80.0 mm and their calices are from 6.0 mm to 30.0 mm across. The smallest corallite is 15.00 mm in height and 6.0 mm across the calice; the medium-sized corallite (broken from the main mass) is 5.0 cm high and 12.0 mm across the calice and the two large corallites are 7.5 cm and 8.0 cm in height and approximately 3.2 cm in greatest diameter. The external granular costae opposite the septa are well defined on the surface of the distal half of the corallites (fig. 4). The calices are round to oval in shape with an easily distinguishable compact columella of tightly twisted ribbon-like pieces. In the largest corallite with an oval calice the columella is elongate, flat and narrow (10 mm × 1.5 mm), in the other large corallite in which the calice is circular the columella is dome-shaped (3.5 mm × 3.5 mm approximately.) The columella is not visible in the two smaller corallites. The lateral surfaces of the septa are finely granular. In the two large corallites there are 24 septa of approximately equal size, in the medium sized corallite 12, and in the smallest 6.

The general habit of this colony, the size range of the corallites, and the arrangement of the septa is similar to that described by Gardiner (1929) for his larger colony of approximately 40 corallites taken off Three Kings Islands in 300 fathoms. The columella, however, of the present small colony is not as conspicuous or of so "spongy" an appearance as described by Gardiner and shown in his Plate 1, fig. 2.

An allied species Dendrophyllia boschmai van der Horst is known as a Tertiary fossil from New Zealand (Squires, 1958), but in this latter species the colony is flabellate in form and the arrangement of the septa is distinctive—the first two cycles are free and the lower cycles develop in the systems next to the secondary septa.

Occurrence: Off Mayor Island, Bay of Plenty, 200 fathoms. One specimen taken alive (Auckland Museum, Coral Collection.)

Distribution: Japan, New Zealand.