Characters: Colonies are corymbose plates that may be over 2 metres across, or irregular cushion-like plates. Plates have short upright branchlets, which are commonly more elongate towards the colony margins. The latter may divide and all branches are up to 15 millimetres thick and taper towards axial corallites, which are slightly exsert, tubular and conspicuous. Radial corallites are appressed with flaring outer lips. They usually form irregular rosettes.
Colour: Uniform brown.
Habitat: Upper reef slopes.
Similar species: Acropora cytherea , Acropora hyacinthus , Acropora microclados
Taxonomic note: This is a new name for what may have been Acropora corymbosa Lamarck (1816). LamarckÂ¿s (1816) type specimen (from Mauritius) is missing and the name is not useable. The name A. corymbosa has been applied to many species including A. hyacinthus, A. cytherea, A. microclados and A. anthocercis (Veron and Wallace, 1984). Source reference: Veron (2000). Taxonomic reference: See Scheer and Pillai (1983) who compare the Red Sea `A. corymbosa` (which is A. parapharaonis) and `A. hyacinthus` (which is this species), Veron (2002).