Stebbins made an enormous contribution to scientific thought and botany by developing an intellectual framework for studying plant evolution including modern concepts of plant species and plant speciation. His contributions to the literature of plant evolutionary biology, in addition to his seven books, include more than 280 journal articles and book chapters, a compilation of which were published in 2004—"The Scientific Papers of G. Ledyard Stebbins (1929–2000)" (). Betty Smocovitis, a historian of science who is preparing a book-length biography on Stebbins, described Stebbins's scientific contribution as follows: