CRINOMEE (Gr. lily-like), an order or family of radiate animals of the class (rhino. dernutta (q.v.), of which the recent species are few, but the fossil species so very numer ous as to constitute great tracts of the dry land as it now appears. The C. have a cen tral disk, in which is contained the digestive cavity, with two orifices, and from which arise arms or rays, five in number, but soon subdividing, so as at first sight to appear more numerous, and again subdividing into lateral appendages, either fin-like or fila mentous, the disk as well as the rays and their subdivisions formed of a calcareous jointed skeleton, clothed with a fleshy integument, of which the fin-like expansions are formed, and which is thicker than in star-fishes, and contains imbedded in it the innu merable ovaries. The joints are also extremely numerous, and the subdivision of the rays often very great. The disk is composed of calcareous pieces and fleshy integu ment like the rays, as is also a stalk on which the whole is visually supported: the base, it is supposed, being fixed, and the disk and rays expanding like a flower. It appears
probable that many of the fossil C. were permanently fixed in this manner, and this is supposed to be the case with the species of pentacrinus still existing, as the caput Medusa', or Medusa's head of the West Indian seas; but others are fixed only when young, the disk and arms finally becoming detached from the stalk and moving freely in the sea, swimming in a manner analogous to that of the medusH. This interesting fact was first discovered by Mr. J. V. Thompson, who found in the sea near Cork the stalked young of the cornatula rosacca, a small but very beautiful species, and the only species of the C. found in the British seas. See ENCIIINITES.