Notes on Some Early British Graptolites

Abstract

Fifty years ago Charles Callaway collected some graptolites from the Shineton (Tremadocian) Shales exposed in Mary Dingle (south of the Wrekin, Shropshire); these he recorded as Dendrograptus sp., stating that he was unprepared to assign them “to any known species or to give them a new name”. The fossils were sent to Charles Lapworth who in 1879 (loc. cit.) wrote that they belonged to two different genera, Clonograptus and Bryograptus; the Clonograptus he later identified (loc. cit.) with reserve as C. rigidus Hall, whilst the Bryograptus formed a genosyntype for that then new genus. Bryograptus was defined by Lapworth about this time from two new species—(1) B. callavei, collected by Callaway from the Shineton Shales, and (2) B. kjerulfi, of which Lapworth had only seen the figures (Graptolithus tenuis) which Kjerulf had drawn from specimens found in the Alum Shales of Vaekkerö (near Oslo).