Coral Gardens

Toby Hudson took this photo of corals form an outcrop on Flynn Reef,
part of the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, Australia.
This Coral Reef is Dying! See what scientists are doing to restore it.

       In the clear waters of the warm seas are many strange plants and animals. The latter often appear like gardens of great variety and beauty. Corals, sea feathers, sea fans and sea whips are all formed by animals known as polyps.

       The coral polyp is very tiny and nearly transparent. Colonies increase by buds or divisions from the parent polyp, or at times, by free-swimming young that form new colonies. They finally settle down on a ledge of rock or onto the floor of the sea, and immediately begin to build a stony base. From this rise partitions or walls. The base and walls together form the skeleton or home of the coral polyp. The stony skeleton is what is commonly called coral.

       Some coral animals work singly and alone, but most of them work in groups and are closely connected. Coral reefs, atolls and little islands are made by those that work together. Corals that grow singly often develop into shapes like large mushrooms, or other plants.

       Around the mouth of the coral polyps are snake-like fingers called tentacles that reach out into the water for food. These and the hair-like points are often brightly colored with rose, pink, orange, green, blue or purple. Thus a coral garden is apt to be very colorful. Sometimes, yellow and brown plants grow among the corals and add their bit. A group of dome-shaped cup corals rising close together like giant mushrooms may be a soft green with a rosy glow over their tops; a lettuce coral may spread out in the sunshine that filters down through the water and look like a bouquet of green and lavender blossoms; or elkhorn corals, branching out like antlers, may grow like a tree in the deep sea garden. The brain corals grow close to the rocky ledges. Between the ridges of the dome-shaped head are valleys filled with the green tentacles of the hungry polyps living there.

       The floor of the sea garden is often filled with the golden heads of pore corals and yellow-tipped finger corals, while brush corals fill in the spaces between and offer good hiding-places to the brightly colored fishes that play hide-and-seek through the lovely garden.

       Most corals have no color in the skeleton itself, and when brought up out of the water, after the polyps themselves are dead and the tissues covering the skeleton have disappeared, are disappointing. However, there are two exceptions. There is a red coral which grows in the Mediterranean and Japanese seas that has long been treasured for good luck pieces and for jewelry. This coral is often called precious coral. Also, there is a black coral found in the Persian Gulf which is used in India.

       Corals lived in the warm seas long before back-boned animals lived on the land. Reefs made by them were in time exposed to wind and washing waters. These actions wore down the coral bit by bit, and the tiny particles sank to the bottom of the sea and became hard-packed limestone. In the limestone of the Chicago region may be seen many of the fossil corals that lived in the warm sea that once covered this part of our land.

       These interesting polyps no longer grow in our area, and there is only one kind that grows as far north as Massachusetts. But there are many kinds of corals along the southern Atlantic coast of our country. They are chiefly white and of little value except for the making of roads.

       No coral reefs are found along the Pacific coast of North America, probably because the shore line drops so suddenly into the sea. This means no rocky ledges are left near enough to the surface of the water for corals to grow there.

       Closely related to and associated with the corals which grow best at a depth of one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet are the fragile sea fans, sea whips and sea feathers. They too are made by polyps, but of a chitinous or horny material cemented with limestone. They wave gracefully back and forth when in the moving water, but become rigid when brought out of it. Some of them are beautifully colored and add more color to the deep sea gardens.  Thomas.

After you read about coral gardens, watch and learn about the sea life that lives in them in the video below.

Author John Vlahides talks about the barrier reef 

and Whitsunday Islands in Australia.

Now Craft a Few Sea Creatures to Remind You of The Coral Gardens. Why not display them in your classroom or in your bedroom at home?

• Craft an Entire School of Rainbow Fish! - paper plate craft
• How To Make a Model of The Great Barrier Reef Out of Pasta
• Coral Reef Display From Paper Mache: Part 1 and Part 2