Considered the founder of evolutionary botany, George Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., was the first scientist to apply modern synthetic evolutionary theory to the plant kingdom. Stebbins was one of the twentieth-century architects who developed the evolutionary synthesis by considering analysis of organic fossils and genetic information with respect to Darwinian theories, specifically natural selection. Stebbins' ideas established and advanced evolutionary biology techniques that examined the processes and mechanisms of genetic mutation, recombination, and chromosome structure and quantity in plants. By applying evolutionary concepts to plants, Stebbins became the first person to synthesize artificially a plant species that survived in a natural environment. His contributions to plant evolution guided other researchers who elaborated on his research, and his findings, especially concerning plant speciation, became accepted as a foundation for botanical investigations. Stebbins' familiarity with plants enhanced his theoretical insights which have been cited as some of the most significant twentieth-century...