THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vou. x1ix.—FULY, 1885.—No. 7. 
EVOLUTION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
BY LESTER F. WARD, A.M. 
i ge law of biologic evolution (for it is no longer a mere “doc- 
trine ”) may be regarded as fairly established, no large and 
respectable body of scientific men being any longer found to 
oppose it when stated in its most general form, while difference 
of opinion and discussion have narrowed down to the more 
special aspects and minor details. In the animal kingdom, where 
organization is generally so high and structure so definite, great 
` progress has been made in discovering the particular lines along 
which development has taken place and something like a true 
genealogy of the existing types has been worked out. The law 
of phylogeny is abundantly established by palzontology and sur- 
prisingly confirmed by embryological ontogeny. 
In the vegetable kingdom this last important class of evidence 
is almost wholly wanting, and paleontological evidence, owing 
to the lower structural rank of plants, is far less complete and 
- convincing than in the animal. 
It is proposed in this article briefly to inquire what vegetable 
palzontology has to present in favor of evolution in plants. The 
subject may be considered under three somewhat distinct points 
of view, the historical, the geological and the botanical. 
I. HISTORICAL VIEW. 
It is a common observation that botany is far behind zoology 
in supporting advanced biological theories. This is still more 
strikingly true of the study of extinct than of that of living forms, 
for not only were the ancients wholly unacquainted with any form 
of vegetable petrifaction, although familiar with fossil shells, 
VOL, XIX.—NO. VII. 42 
