Why did Mendel choose pea plants for his experiments?
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.
