CHAPTER II 



THE MENDELIAN PHENOMENA OF INHERITANCE ; 

 THE RESULT OF CROSSING TALL WITH DWARF PEAS 



Mendel published his results in the journal of 

 a local scientific society in Briinn, in Austria, 

 in 1865; but his paper remained unnoticed* until 

 the year 1900, when attention was directed to it 

 almost simultaneously by Correns, Tschermak and 

 de Vries, the former two of whom had repeated 

 some of Mendel's experiments, and were thus able 

 to attest the accuracy of his observations. I shall 

 deal in Chapter XIL with the circumstances in 

 which Mendel's discovery was made, and with the 

 probable causes which led to its being forgotten for 

 so long ; and shall pass on now to a description of the 

 Mendelian phenomena themselves. 



The reader is probably familiar with two kinds 

 of the edible pea (Pisum sativum), the tall and the 

 dwarf. The tall peas grow to any height from three 

 to six, or even eight, feet, and need to be supported 

 with sticks ; the dwarf peas do not rise more than 

 a foot or two above the level of the ground, and 

 need not be staked. 



The difference between a tall and a dwarf pea is 



* Witli the single exception of a reference in Focke's Pflanzenmisch- 

 linge, 1881. 



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