Download During the 1860` s, an Austrian monk and biologist named

During the 1860' s, an Austrian monk
and biologist named Gregor Mendel worked
among hundreds of pea plants in the garden of
a small monastery in Czechoslovakia. Mendel
experimented with pea plants to seeif he could
fmd a pattern in the way certain characteristics
are handed down from one generation of pea
plants to the next generation. Another word for
the characteristics of an organism is trait. So
Mendel actually studied the way certain traits
are passedon from one generation of organisms
to the next generation. Pea plant traits include
how tall the plant grows, the color of their
seeds,and the shape of their seeds.
Although Mendel 4id not realize it at
the time, his experiments would come to be
consideredthe beginning of genetics. Genetics
is the study ofheredity, or the passing on of
traits from an organism to its offspring. F or
this reason, Mendel is called the Father of
Genetics.
Mendel chose pea plants for his
experiments becausepea plants grow and
reproduce quickly. So he knew that he could
study many generations of pea plants in a short
amount of time. Mendel also knew that pea
plants had a variety of different traits that could
be studied at the sametime. That is, he could
study plant height, plant seed color, plant seed
shape and other traits in the sameexperiment.
At first, Mendel was bewildered by the
behavior of certain traits of pea plants. For
example, when he grew pea plant from seeds
produced by certain tall pea plants that he had
pollinated with pollen from short pea plants,
Mendel expected all of the offspring to be of
medium height. Instead, all of the offspring
were tall. Every time he repeatedthis procedure