Rhizaxinella Keller, 1880

Plotkin, Alexander S. & Janussen, Dorte, 2008, Polymastiidae and Suberitidae (Porifera: Demospongiae: Hadromerida) of the deep Weddell Sea, Antarctic *, Zootaxa 1866, pp. 95-135 : 126

Genus Rhizaxinella Keller, 1880

Diagnosis (sensu van Soest 2002):

Pedunculate sponges, with spherical, ovoid or cylindrical body carried on a simple or ramified stalk, normally attached to the substrate by a root system; usually an apical oscule. Body with a more­or­less radial skeleton and with brushes of spicules at the surface, skeleton of the stalk a tightly packed mass of aligned megascleres, bound by spongin. Megascleres are tylostyles of different sizes with raphides in trichodragmas.

Type species: Rhizaxinella clavigera Keller, 1880 (by monotypy) = junior synonym of Alcyonium pyrifera delle Chiaje, 1828.