Characters: Colonies have large upright cylindrical branches and may form stands more than 5 metres across. Horizontally fused basal branches are only developed in shallow water. Radial corallites are of mixed sizes and shapes and are rasp-like.
Colour: Cream, brown, blue, yellow and green. Individual colonies are uniform in colour except for the branch ends, which are pale.
Similar Species: Radial corallites are similar to those of Acropora robusta and A. abrotanoides, but these species have different growth-forms except in very shallow water. A. muricata, A. abrolhosensis and A. grandis may have similar growth-forms but corallite sizes and shapes are clearly distinct.
Habitat: Deep sandy lagoons to upper reef slopes.
Abundance: Common.
Taxonomic Note: A species complex. Most authors have called this complex Acropora nobilis after Veron and Wallace (1984) . See Wallace (1999) for details of the taxonomic history.
Taxonomic References: Wallace (1978); Veron and Wallace (1984) as Acropora nobilis; Wallace (1999); Wallace, Done and Muir (2012);
Identification Guides: Veron (1986a) as Acropora nobilis; Sheppard and Sheppard (1991) as Acropora nobilis; Nishihira and Veron (1995) as Acropora nobilis; Pillay, Terashima, Venkatasami et al. (2002) as Acropora nobilis; Turak and DeVantier (2011b);
