Life+Changes.+Inheritance.+Gregor+Mendel+4

include component="page" wikiName="wikidia" page="1_close" include component="page" wikiName="wikidia" page="1_menuoptions"

Mendel thought about pollination, when the pollen met the __ovum__ (the egg). Maybe the ovum was either an ovum for making yellow pea-plants, or for making green-pea plants. Maybe it was the same for the pollen. There was pollen for yellow-pea plants and for green-pea plants.

When he cross-pollinated the yellow-pea flowers and the green-pea flowers, the peas were always yellow, but in every pollen-ovum pair one of them was yellow. So yellow always 'won', and always made yellow peas.

But when he self-pollinated the new flowers, they would make all sorts of pollen-ovum pairs.

One out of every four pairs would be green and green. One out of every four pairs would be yellow and yellow. The rest would be yellow and green pairs.

It worked! It explained the pattern.