An anemone with two different tentacle types on one disc: short, branched, densely packed ones over the centre, and longer simple ones around the rim, so the surface reads as tight pile carpet with a fringe. Colour is frequently zoned - a pink centre in a green surround, or yellow against grey - and the disc reaches about 30 cm (12 in).
The English name comes from the look of that zoned, densely covered disc, but the surface is the thing to remember: the tentacles are unusually sticky, adhering firmly to anything that brushes them, and this is one of the few reef anemones capable of a sting a diver will remember. Only one clownfish, Clark's anemonefish, is known to settle in it at all, and on these reefs it more often sits unoccupied at the base of a coral head, half-buried in sand. Approach it as a photograph and nothing else: the grip is strong enough that pulling free tears both the tentacles and, sometimes, skin.
- two kinds of tentacle - short branched ones in the centre, longer at the edge
- surface looks like tight pile carpet or moss
- colours often in two contrasting zones, pink, green or yellow
- disc up to 30 cm across
