Stebbins 's review , The significance of polyploidy in plant evolution , showed how polyploidy was important in developing large , complex , and widespread genera . Stebbins 's review , `` The significance of polyploidy in plant evolution '' , published in American Naturalist in 1940 , demonstrated how work done on artificial polyploids and natural polyploid complexes had shown that polyploidy was important in developing large , complex , and widespread genera .