What Varieties Of Coral Can Be Found On A Coral Reef?

There are corals do not build onto the reef proper, though their presence does add to its mass. There is the staghorn coral, the growth of which resembles that of massive tree branches, some of them fifteen to twenty feet long and two feet thick at the base. The brain coral takes the form of various-size boulders with markings that are very much like the convolutions of the brain. These grow in tide pools close to the reef.
There is the stinging coral, which is the bane of divers, for it can inflict a painful wound on creatures venturing too near. Another type of coral looks very much like lettuce in form. Soft corals, as distinguished from the rock corals, include the vividly colored star coral, others that are just a flabby mass with soft, spongy, branching fingers, and still others that look like large plates, some six to eight feet in diameter, having the polyps arranged in concentric circles.