Frank Lipfert, Deutschland
Info
Colony Form
Small, bushy, with lateral branching, often in one or few planes, usually no more than 30 cm tall (maximum recorded 46 cm)
Axis black, branches, cylindrical to slightly compressed.
Stiff; terminal branches in particular flattened, to 6 mm across and up to 6 cm long; sometimes with small terminal branches arising laterally in irregularly pinnate pattern.
Apertures
Individual slit-like calices along narrow edges of blades.
Color: Yellow to green; occasional orange to purple; margins purple or with purple calices; polyps white to tan.
Sclerites
Polyp armature: small, blunt rods with few weak bumps or thorns, to 0.08 mm long. Body wall: stout spindles with few to many large simple to complex tubercles, to 0.16 mm long; scaphoids (curved sclerites) stout, compact, often with blunt ends, to 0.16 mm long; ornamentation of crowded complex, sometimes fused tubercles.
Habitat: Inshore, shallow areas from back reefs to patch reefs; 1-10 m depth.
Notes: In the other local species of Pterogorgia, Pterogorgia anceps, polyps arise from a common groove along the length of the blade.
Source: Interactive Identification Guide to South Florida Octocorals
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/octocoral_all/360/
Small, bushy, with lateral branching, often in one or few planes, usually no more than 30 cm tall (maximum recorded 46 cm)
Axis black, branches, cylindrical to slightly compressed.
Stiff; terminal branches in particular flattened, to 6 mm across and up to 6 cm long; sometimes with small terminal branches arising laterally in irregularly pinnate pattern.
Apertures
Individual slit-like calices along narrow edges of blades.
Color: Yellow to green; occasional orange to purple; margins purple or with purple calices; polyps white to tan.
Sclerites
Polyp armature: small, blunt rods with few weak bumps or thorns, to 0.08 mm long. Body wall: stout spindles with few to many large simple to complex tubercles, to 0.16 mm long; scaphoids (curved sclerites) stout, compact, often with blunt ends, to 0.16 mm long; ornamentation of crowded complex, sometimes fused tubercles.
Habitat: Inshore, shallow areas from back reefs to patch reefs; 1-10 m depth.
Notes: In the other local species of Pterogorgia, Pterogorgia anceps, polyps arise from a common groove along the length of the blade.
Source: Interactive Identification Guide to South Florida Octocorals
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/octocoral_all/360/
