Gregor Mendel of Mendelian inheritance. Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to certain traits. (In the preceding example, the green trait, which seems to have vanished in
Christian Carl André Christian Carl André Christian Carl André (1763-1831) was a leading 19th century European natural scientist, publisher, economist and educator. He was among the pioneers in the study of heredity whose vision paved the way for the research of Gregor Mendel, the founder of modern genetics. Christian Carl André was born on 20 March 1763 in the German town of Hildburghausen. He studied at the University of Jena, and worked as a teacher in Eisenach and at the Schnepfenthal Salzmann School in Gotha. Then from 1798 to 1820 he lived in Brno, then within the Habsburg empire, where he headed the