polypora

For miles together, -- we know not how many, -- the bottom of a clear shallow sea was paved with living Astreæ: every irregular rock-like coral formed a separate colony of polypora, that, when in motion, presented the appearance of continuous masses of many-colored life, and when at rest, the places they occupied were more thickly studded with the living florets than the richest and most flowery piece of pasture the reader ever saw, with its violets or its daisies.

The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland Hugh Miller 1829