Creationists were shocked to read a news article about the evolution of lilies—astonishingly, a fossilized lily, the supposed oldest ever discovered (115 million years), looked just like. . . a lily! The evolution is incredible! Actually, it forgot to evolve! Okay, so that was very tongue-in-cheek—we weren’t surprised to see that lilies have always been lilies. That’s exactly what we’d expect based on God’s Word.
This particular specimen was “extraordinarily well preserved,” including roots, flower, and even the individual cells. And it has all the features of that specific class of plant (monocotyledonous): “parallel-veined, narrow leaves with a leaf sheath, a fibrous root system and triple flowers.” The scientists say, based on this new specimen, “it can be deduced that the tropical flowering plants were already very diverse.”
This find is no surprise to biblical creationists. God created each kind—including the kind that includes lilies—to reproduce according to their kinds. So, we see great variety within a kind, but lilies stay lilies.
This remarkably well-preserved fossil wasn’t buried 115 million years ago—it was catastrophically buried during the global flood of Noah’s day just about 4,300 years ago. And it’s so incredibly preserved because it was buried so quickly—not slowly and gradually, which we’d expect if this fossil had been growing in a quiet freshwater lake, as they describe in the news article. It points to the catastrophic processes of the flood, not the slow and gradual processes of our day.