It occurs in shallow water in the West Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, sometimes as small solid heads and sometimes as unattached cone-shaped forms.

The corallites are arranged in a meandroid fashion, which means there are a series of linked centres in broad valleys, often 10 to 15 mm (0.4 to 0.6 in) wide,[3] giving the colony the appearance of the surface of a human brain.

The polyps sit in corallites (stony cups) in the valleys from which fine septa (transverse ridges) extend in several series up to the summit of the walls on either side.

It is found on soft sediments, cobble or rubble, on fore-reef and back-reef slopes and in sea grass meadows.

This gives them the facility to inflate the body cavity with water, enabling the polyps to swell up and dislodge sediment, and even turn the colony over if this proves necessary.

Fertilisation is internal and the larvae are brooded inside the colony for two weeks before being released simultaneously on the night of the new moon.

[1] Rose coral is tolerant of a wide range of salinities and temperature variations and some degree of sedimentation.