Gregor Mendel chose the pea plants for his experiments because the garden pea is an ideal subject in the study of genetics for the following reasons:
-- presence of observable traits with contrasting forms
-- produces many offspring in one cross
-- short life cycle
-- ease in manipulating pollination (cross pollination)
Pea plants had the following chacracteristics:plants were sexually reproducing with bisexual flowersself pollination and self fertilization is possiblethe life cycle was completed in one seasonhybrids were perfectly fertilemany varieties with well-defined characters were available i.e. presence of seven pairs of contrasting or allelomorphic characters
Pea plants (leguminosae) have an irregular flower in which the top part of the corolla is much larger than the lower part (Hitchcock and CronquistFlora of the Pacific Northwest p228). If you haven't ever seen a pea flower, it looks much like a snap dragon bloom. This feature keeps the flowers from freely pollinating each other by wind, as they are tightly shut. If protected from pollinating insects, they will only self pollinate, or if the anthers are clipped off they can be very selectively pollinated by a person. This gave Mendel much tighter control over the crossbreeding of the plants.
