Morphological description (show/hide)
| massive, shallow cup-shaped, artichoke-like, with broad base and uneven margin, outer surface bearing numerous blind, very short, evenly distributed fistules, dimensions: ~4-5 (h) _ 5-7 cm (w), ~3-5.5 cm (w) base, deep sea fauna: 237-250 m (depth). | | dark brown in ethanol, stains ethanol deep pu | | not visible. | | hard, but not stony, brittle, with some compressible parts. | | uneven, fisulose. | | composed of regular and slightly curved dicranoclones, desmas form extremely distinct root/vine-like mesh, choanosomal microscleres typically microspinose spirasters with long, more-or-less pointed rays, thick bundles of long oxeas. | | contains layer of very abundant smooth dichotriaenes perpendicular to surface, microscleres abundant, numerous and diverse microscleres at surface crust, microspinose (often centrotylote and curved) microxeas, euaster-like streptasters. | | dichotriaenes: smooth, often with tips of cladome bent and lower third of rhabdome with several grooves, 523-784 (l) _ 297-479 (d cladome) um, dicranoclone desmas: regular, slightly curved, tripodal, slender, smooth or with numerous low, indistinct, smooth tubercles (often central tubercle is higher), adjacent desmas produce complex skeletal network via entanglement of extremities, aided by root/vine-like lateral extensions, oxeas: very long (all broken), some shorter unbroken, ~486 _ 7-8 um, unclear if native or foreign. | | microacanthoxeas: centrotylote, 65.9-107 _ 3.9-5.6 um, streptasters: 2 types, 1, spiraster, very variable, with slender arms, 17.5-25.9 _ 15.0-20.8 um, 2, resembling euaster with long rays, 8.2-15.0 um (d). |
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