Muricea fruticosa

The lectotype is a large, bushy colony 35 cm tall, and about 45 cm wide. Four main branches, 25–35 mm in diameter, somewhat flattened, arise from an irregular, 52 mm diameter holdfast. The holdfast is spreading and raised about 30 mm above substrate, the specimen is attached to a plaster base for a past years museum display. The main branches subdivide very close to the base in secondary branches that immediately divide and subdivide in an irregular manner producing branches and branchlets closely placed, no more than 20 mm apart, at angles 45°–90°. Secondary branches and branchlets are 3–5 mm in diameter, mostly crooked and curved upwards or downwards. Some anastomosis occurs at the ends of branchlets. Unbranched terminal ends are 3–5 mm in diameter and 15–40 mm long. The axis is clear amber at the tips and darker at the base. The calyces are close together, or few millimetres apart, not imbricate, spreading outward and upward. They have large, strong, sharp sclerites forming the shelf-like projecting platform, 1–1.2 mm long, on the lower side. Polyps are on the upper side of the prominent calyces. The calyx sclerites give a prickly appearance to the colony. The calyx size and spacing vary from the larger branches to the thinner, being larger and acute, and closer placed at the branchlets and shorter, blunt, and distant at the main branches. The polyp apertures are covered by anthocodial sclerites. The coenenchyme is thin, composed of reddish-brown, amber, pale yellow to whitish sclerites. The outer coenenchyme and the calycular sclerites are composed of large, conspicuous unilateral spinous spindles visible to the naked eye . These spindles are of diverse shapes, with blunt or acute ends, or irregular with one acute end and the other blunt, with bifurcated ends or with spiny tips. The unilateral spinous spindles are basically spinulose on the outer surface and tuberculate on the inner surface in this species, some tubercles are large, sharp and spiny. The spindles are deep reddish brown, brownish yellow to pale yellow, and combinations of them . These spindles are 0.53–2.1 mm long, and 0.11–0.55 mm wide ; they are forming the calyces and lying between them. The spindles bordering the calyx are long with stout, terminal spikes, 0.32–1 mm long and 0.07–0.2 mm wide, some with bifurcated warty ends . The axial sheath is composed of small, pale yellow to colourless spindles, 0.30–1 mm long and 0.05–0.12 mm wide, with whorls of small warts, and long spindles. Anthocodial sclerites are of a yellow to a very pale yellow colour, arranged in irregular points, mostly composed of warty spindles, 0.40–0.64 mm long, and 0.07–0.1 mm wide, small warty rods 0.2–0.38 mm long and 0