Gorgoniidae

thumb|right|Leptogorgia palma thumb|right|Gorgonia flabellum Gorgoniidae is a family of soft corals in order Malacalcyonacea. Nearly all the genera and species are native to the east and west coasts of America.

==Characteristics== Originally the members of the family Gorgoniidae included a much wider range of genera than it does now and was used for all of the horny Octocorallia. Now it is restricted to those species where the "calcareous spicules are less than 0.3 mm. in length, sculptured with regularly disposed girdles of complicated tubercles ('warts'), the anthocodiae are relatively unarmed, at most with but a few characteristically shaped flat rods en chevron beneath each tentacle, the horny axial cylinder is weakly loculated if at all, and is perforated by a relatively narrow, chambered central chord, and in which the branchlets are usually quite slender, with a thin cortex."