Mendel's Model System: the Garden Pea
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Mendel studied the garden pea, Pisum sativum, because it grows quickly, produces many offspring, and shows traits in sharply distinct classes rather than a continuous range.
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Pea flower color appears as either violet or white, never intermediate, making each cross's outcome easy to score.
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Mendel deliberately chose discontinuous traits — this choice, not luck, is why his ratios came out so clean.