DNAFTB Animation 1: Gregor Mendel explains how traits are inherited.

Hello, I'm Gregor Mendel. I worked with pea plants because they are easy to grow and they have many variable traits. Most importantly, they can be crossed with themselves or other pea plants. When left alone, pea flowers self fertilize. Let's look inside...The stamens, the male sex parts, mature first and drop pollen inside the immature flower. The pistil, the female sex part, matures later. Its eggs are fertilized by the pollen that lands on the pistil. To cross fertilize pea plants, I opened the immature flower. Then, I cut off the stamens before they matured and dropped pollen. After the flower matured, I dusted its pistil with pollen from another plant. This is cross fertilization.

pea plants,self fertilize, cross fertilization, pistil, stamens, pollen, eggs, Gregor Mendel, Mendel, traits