Crossword-Solution: CALICLE 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 11

Etym: [L., a stake.] (Zoöl.) Defn: One of several upright slender calcareous processes which surround the central part of the calicle of certain corals.

The cavities both of the calices and coenenchymal tubes of Heliopora are closed below by horizontal partitions or _tabulae_, hence the genus was formerly included in the group Tabulata, and was supposed to belong to the madreporarian corals, both because of its lamellar skeleton, which resembles that of a Madrepore, and because each calicle has from twelve to fifteen radial partitions or septa projecting into its cavity.

When fully extended, the upper part of the zooid projects for some distance out of the calicle, and its wall is reflected for some distance over the lip of the latter, forming a fold of soft tissue extending to a greater or less distance over the theca, and containing in most cases a cavity continuous over the lip of the calicle with the coelenteron.

But in some cases, as they grow farther apart, this continuity is broken, each corallite has its own edge-zone, and internal continuity is also broken by the formation of dissepiments within each calicle, all organic connexion between the two zooids being eventually lost.

Thus in the family _Stauridae_ there are four chief septa whose inner ends unite in the middle of the calicle to form a false columella, and in the _Zaphrentidae_ there are many instances of an arrangement, such as that depicted in fig.