Which plant did Gregor Johann Mendel use to study genetics?

Gregor Johann Mendel, often referred to as the father of modern genetics, conducted his groundbreaking experiments using the common garden pea plant, known scientifically as Pisum sativum. He selected this plant for several reasons that contributed to the success of his studies on inheritance patterns.

Pea plants have distinct varieties with clear, observable traits, such as flower color and pod shape, allowing Mendel to easily track how these traits were passed from one generation to the next. They also exhibit a relatively short generation time, enabling him to observe multiple generations within a short period. Furthermore, pea plants can self-fertilize and cross-fertilize, providing Mendel with the ability to control breeding and study the effects of specific genetic combinations.

This careful selection of the pea plant laid the foundation for Mendel's laws of inheritance, including the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment, which describe how traits are inherited in predictable patterns. His work ultimately established key principles that form the basis of genetic science today.