lucernaria

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The typical genus of Lucernariidæ. These animals are small, gelatinous, semi-transparent, and variously colored or phosphorescent marine organisms (jellyfishes), either swimming freely by rhythmical contraction and expansion of the umbrella, or fixed to some submerged object by means of a stalk or peduncle which grows out of the back (aboral surface) of the disk and constitutes a hydrorhiza or rootstalk. In this latter state the animal is trumpet- or bell-shaped, resembling a little hand-bell standing on the end of its handle, with the other end expanded into an eight-rayed limb or disk, each ray ending in a little bundle or tuft of tentacles, and the center of the disk being occupied by a single polypite with a four-lobed mouth leading into the body-cavity. See Lucernariidæ.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) A genus of acalephs, having a bell-shaped body with eight groups of short tentacles around the margin. It attaches itself by a sucker at the base of the pedicel.