Trimuricea africana Gordon, 1926

(Figs. 2–3, 4 a)

Trimuricea africana Gordon, 1926: 519 –520: Pl. I. figs. 5, 5a.

Material: BMNH 1933.5.3.102, holotype, Portuguese East Africa (= Mozambique), station 2.

Description (colony shape after Gordon 1926). The holotype is 9 cm high and 4.5 cm wide, branched in one plane and without anastomoses (Fig. 4 a). The calyces are dome shaped, closely set together, and situated all around the branches. They are low, usually under 0.5 mm tall, with a diameter of up to 1 mm. Each polyp point has two pairs of triradiates, and there is one row of flattened spindles in the collaret.

The triradiates (Fig. 2 a), along with curved, hockeystick or boot-shaped sclerites, or spindles (Fig. 2 b) of the points are of similar length, 0.10–0.25 mm long; the upper ray of the triradiates and the upper part of the spindles is slightly echinulate for over a length up to 0.15 mm. Collaret spindles are 0.15–0.30 mm long (Fig. 2 c). These polyp sclerites have very few tubercles. Tentacles have a few curved, or boot-shaped scales up to 0.10 mm long (Fig. 2 d).

The calyces have thornscales, 0.10–0.30 mm long, with one or several smooth thorns up to 0.10 mm long (Fig. 3 a–b).

The coenenchyme has both simple and unilaterally spinose spindles, 0.30–1 mm long, with simple or complex tubercles (Figs. 2 e, 3c).

Colour. The preserved colony is white, the sclerites are colourless. There is no information about the colour of the live colony and polyps.

Remarks. This species is unique in the genus Trimuricea having a colony without anastomoses and many unilateral spinose spindles in the coenenchyme. Trimuricea omanensis n. sp., and Trimuricea tuberculosa n. sp. also have some spindles in the coenenchyme that superficially resemble unilateral spinose spindles but their colony has many anastomoses and these spindles are far shorter than those in T. africana . This species has by far the longest spindles reported for the genus, up to 1 mm long.

Gordon (1926: Pl. 1 Fig. 5) depicted only part of the holotype, and her description of the polyp arrangement is incomplete as no mention at all is made about the presence of curved, hockeystick or boot-shaped sclerites in the points.