Jewel Anemone

Photo: Bernard Picton · CC BY

Jewel anemones at Cathedral Rock cover the archway ceilings in clonal colonies of astonishing colour variation — neon green, vivid purple, burnt orange, and white — often with different colour morphs in adjacent patches. They are not true anemones but corallimorpharians, reproducing clonally to tile bare rock in areas of modest current. Under torch light in the subdued Scottish water, their effect on a diver passing through the archways is genuinely otherworldly.