— Active | Passive

The Venus' Flower Basket is a Hexactenellid sponge that resides in the deep ocean. The sponge is attached to the ocean floor by a skeleton made of four- and/or six-pointed silaceous spicules - giving them the name glass sponges. The sponges actually creates these spicules, in cold temperatures no less, by converting silicic acid from seawater into silica. The spicules converge to create elaborate skeletons with distinct patterns - usually radially symmetrical and vase- or funnel-shaped . These spicules reside in a loose membrane of Syncytium that is comprised mostly of cytoplasm. The sponges grow very slowly at extremely low temperatures with enormous life spans quoted in the thousands, not hundreds of years. The glass sponge is interesting architecturally due to its mixing of extremely geometric and defined spicules held together loosely in the permeable membrane of spongin.