An info update for those who may have bagged a piece of the greenish, plating coral that I brought to the swap. I distinctly remember receiving a small frag of this about 2-3 years ago at the Kamloops frag swap & I was advised that it is a chalice. Many folks who have seen it feel it might be a montipora & a positive id has been bugging me for some time, so I did some online research today.
Looked through a long list of Montipora & Echinophyllia photos and can certainly see the possibility of confusion over the real McCoy. The original frag has grown to a good size in my system, the plates are quite delicate (thin) & haven't changed colour from a dominant green, although recently one plate near the glass has developed patches of a creamy tan colour. I recently switched to LED lighting, but the tan sections began to develop prior to the change, so doubt that has much to do with it.
In any case, I'm inclined to take the word of the hobbyist I received the frag from & call it an Echinophyllia aspera. While I did find photos of Montipora that were very similar looking, none had the distinct green hue that my colony displays. It doesn't help the situation in that I've seen Montipora foliosa listed with an English name of Chalice Coral & Echinophyllia aspera called a Symphony Coral on the same web site. A link which leads me to believe it may be E. aspera follows. Photo here looks like a dead ringer of what I have in my tank, but it's not a real close up.
http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/m...lia-aspera.htm
Details on E. aspera on another site, makes me wonder again, since my specimen doesn't look much like the photos there & certainly doesn't have any of the larger 'eyes'. M. florida, foliosa or delicatula look like better matches structure wise on this site, but the colours are not nearly the same.
http://sdmas.com/corals/136.php
http://sdmas.com/corals/255.php
http://sdmas.com/corals/451.php
http://sdmas.com/corals/465.php
After all that, I guess the jury's still out due to confusion between scientific & English, or common names on the web. It's been a fast grower, easy to maintain in my system, so should do well for anyone that scored a frag. Credit to the poll thread on a coral/fish database for steering me towards researching the links above.