Dimensions.—Radius of the arms 0.3 to 0.6 to 1.15, breadth 0.06 to 0.12.
Habitat.—Pacific, central area, Station 271, surface.
Genus 263. Dictyocoryne,[[302]] Ehrenberg, 1860, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, p. 830.
Definition.—Spongodiscida with three spongy arms on the margin of the circular or triangular disk, connected by a spongy patagium of different texture.
The genus Dictyocoryne differs from the foregoing Rhopalodictyum only in the patagium, connecting the three spongy arms, and bears to it the same relation as in the Porodiscida Euchitonia does to Rhopalastrum. The typical species of this genus is Dictyocoryne profunda, the only species figured by Ehrenberg. After his insufficient diagnosis Dictyocoryne was identical with his Spongaster (compare my Monograph, p. 467); but as the type of this latter genus (Spongaster tetras) figured by him, 1872, had four crossed arms, we retain this genus here separate.
Subgenus 1. Dictyocorynula, Haeckel.
Definition.—Triangular shell regular, with three arms of equal size and equal distance.
1. Dictyocoryne profunda, Ehrenberg.
Dictyocoryne profunda, Ehrenberg, 1872, Abhandl. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, p. 307, Taf. vii. fig. 23.
Arms of equal size and equidistant, club-shaped, in the outer circular half three times as broad as in the inner cylindrical half, and much larger than the small triangular central disk. Patagium complete, forming an equilateral triangle with rounded corners.