BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
LEAFLETS 
Series X Brooklyn, N. Y., May 3, 1922. No. 3 
EVOLUTION AS ILLUSTRATED BY FERNS 
More than sixty years ago, Charles Darwin wrote into the 
minds of men at large the idea that similarities between existing 
species of plants and animals indicate relationships, further con- 
vincing evidence of which maybe found in geological series which 
constitute the genealogical records. Expressed in other words, he 
firmly established the idea that creation has been, and still is, a 
process of continuous evolution. At first, many refused the new 
thought as contrary to old, accepted beliefs and teachings. 
Today, on the contrary, it is a matter for wonderment when some- 
one, supposedly intelligent, rises to attack the accepted faith in 
the law of evolution; and we place together, intellectually, the 
anti-evolutionist and that other, who declared (according to a 
recent news item) that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves 
about the earth. 
It should be emphasized here that while Darwin is responsible 
for the general acceptance today of evolution, the idea did not 
originate in his mind, but had been thought of from time to time 
since the days of Aristotle. Darwin’s contribution was a descrip- 
tion of a workable method, that of natural selection, by which 
species may have been differentiated. As evidence of this method, 
Darwin presented an overwhelming mass of facts, the result of 
nearly thirty years of world-wide travel and intensive study. 
Today, evolution is a commonplace in the minds of those who 
view the facts with open minds, and is as well established as the 
fundamental laws of chemistry and physics ; as well or better 
founded than molecules and gravity, and rests on the same basis 
of reasoning; namely, the inferring of causes from activities and 
results. 
Ferns supply ample evidence of evolution along the lines on 
which Darwin originally worked ; of similar and related species, 
and of continuous geological lines of progress, extending far back 
into the coal period, much earlier than the line of any other of 
the larger land plants. It is a matter of great significance that 
to those fern relatives of primordial forests we may trace the 
ancestry of practically all the common and important plants of 
today. It is a matter of more_than passing interest also that to 
these same primitive plants we owe in large part our coal and 
mineral oil supplies of modern industry. 
