Locally common in murky bays and lagoons.  Variable, encrusting, massive, plate-like, columnar, branching, or a combination on the same colony, golden brown with white growing edges.  Corallites both immersed and exsert, generally surrounded by small papillae.  Indo-Pacific excluding Hawaii where it is replaced by the Montipora patula.

All coral skeletons illustrated are from scientific collections taken prior to 1998.