Sertularia — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Sertularia, a common genus of Hydroids, in which the branched horny investment of the plant-like colony forms a sessile cup around each polyp. The polyps are arranged in a double row, and the colony is attached to stones, shells, seaweeds, and the like. Among the hydrothece or cups surrounding the polyps or nutritive zooid larger pear-shaped capsules or gonothecæ occur, within which the reproductive elements are formed from special generative zooids. Unlike many Campanularians and Tubularians, the Sertularian hydroids never liberate medusoid reproductive individuals or zooids. See HYDROZOA, and Hinck's British Hydroid Zoophytes (2 vols. Lond. 1868).

A detailed botanical illustration of a Sertularian Colony. It shows a central, branched, plant-like structure with numerous small, individual polyps attached to the branches. The colony is shown growing on a rocky or shell-like substrate at its base. — A Sertularian Colony (natural size).

See HYDROZOA, and Hinck's British Hydroid Zoophytes (2 vols. Lond. 1868).