Cryptophyton jedsmithi

Description. Colonial morphology (Figures 1 A, 2). The holotype consists of approximately eighty-five polyps arising from flattened basal stolons. The stolons encrust a piece of dead cheilostomatid bryozoan, 32 mm long by 20 mm wide. The surface of the bryozoan is interspersed with several calcareous tubes of a serpulid polychaete. Polyps (Figures 1 B-C). Anthosteles are moundlike, rounded, hemispherical to subcylindrical. Anthocodiae are mostly retracted within the anthosteles, although a few are emergent. The anthosteles are approximately equal in height and diameter, mostly 1 - 1.4 mm. Sclerites (Figures 1 D-E, 3, 4). Sclerites of the coenencyme and anthosteles resemble spiny balls or stellate bodies with projecting processes in three dimensions; 0.05 - 0.10 mm long. Sclerites are absent from the anthocodiae and polyp bodies. Color (Figures 1 A-C). Color in life: the anthosteles are pale orange and the anthocodiae are white. Wet-preserved holotype: stolons and anthosteles light grayish white, while the emergent anthocodiae are white.

Etymology. The species is named for Jedediah Strong Smith, American trailblazer and cartographer, who explored vast regions of western North America between 1822 and 1831, and along the Pacific Coast, including San Diego in December of 1826 (Brooks 1977) - the area of the type locality of the new species.