More often than not, a corallimorph appears as a circular arrangement of colorful beads that get larger as they progress towards the edge of the disc, although the arrangement can digress from a circular pattern to suit the surrounding topography.

A close look reveals that the beads are in fact the tip of short tentacles. As a matter of fact, the corallimorph, as the name implies, is very much an anemone (q.v.) that tries to resemble a coral, with the major difference that it does not secrete any of the calcareous substance the would enable it to build up a skeleton. Unlike a common anemone though, the corallimorph spreads flat over the chosen substrate to form a disc (known as the oral disc) on which tentacles develop radially and concentrically, surrounding a central mouth.