“Anchinoë leptochela (Hentschel) (Plate LIV, fig. II).
Hymedesmia leptochela, Hentschel, 1914, p. 115, pl. viii, fig. 2.
Occurrence. St. 42: South Georgia, 120-204 m.; St. 159: South Georgia, 160 m.
REMARKS. It is a natural suspicion that many of the species of Hymedesmia may eventually prove to be the encrusting, possibly immediate post-fixation stages, of other species of Myxilleae. This, at all events, appears to be the case with H. leptochela, Hentschel. The holotype formed a thin encrustation on foreign bodies (Fremdkörper), and had a smooth surface with a low papillate oscule. The skeleton showed the usual Hymedesmia structure. The present specimens range from encrusting to massive, always growing on fragments of rock, often incorporating much foreign matter in their substance, and bear a number of papillate oscules. The spicules are almost identical with those of the holotype, but are arranged as in Anchinoë.
There is no obvious reason why the skeleton in the immediate post-fixation stage of an Anchinoë should not consist of acanthostyli set at right angles to the substratum, with their bases planted thereon, nor why, as growth proceeds, the acanthostyli should not be rearranged to form the ascending fibres, cored by tornota and echinated by acanthostyli, of a typical Anchinoë.
DISTRIBUTION. Wilhelm Land.”
(Burton, 1932)
