ABBOT GREGOR MENDEL 7 



Even if I cannot now enter more deeply into his 

 researches, yet I will indicate the essence of his 

 observations as simply as I can. In the beds of the 

 Monastery garden at Altbriinn he cultivated white - 

 flowering and purple -flowering peas ; he then polli- 

 nated them by artificial crossing, and the seed pro- 

 duced he used for a fresh culture. Now, what 

 happened through this crossing ? According to the 

 then prevailing opinion, one expected in these hybrid 

 peas pinkish (light purple) flowers whose colour would 

 be a mixture or blend of the original colours of the 

 two flowers. But the trial turned out quite differ- 

 ently. The flowers of the first generation were all 

 purple, and in this generation the white-flowering 

 character seems to have entirely disappeared. As a 

 matter of fact, this character had not disappeared 

 but remained latent in this generation. In the 

 second one it reappeared, for both purple and white 

 flowering peas were present. In respect to this, the 

 following marvellous behaviour showed itself. In all 

 following- generations when the plants were self- 

 pollinated, from white-flowering peas only white- 

 flowering peas appeared, but the purple -flowering 

 peas divided themselves through their seed into 

 white and purple flowering peas and exactly in the 

 proportion of one to three respectively. 



This example shows the simplest case of crossings 

 as only one character, the colour of the flower, is 

 different in the two parent forms. Naturally, how- 

 ever, in other crosses two or more characters were 

 different — for example, colour of the flower, shape of 



