What is concluded about one of Mendel's short pea plants?

A. It has one dominant and one recessive gene
B. It has a pair of recessive genes
C. It has a pair of dominant genes
D. It has no recessive genes
A?

To determine the conclusion about one of Mendel's short pea plants, we need to understand Mendel's principles of inheritance. Mendel's research on pea plants demonstrated that characteristics, such as plant height, were determined by the presence of dominant and recessive genes.

When Mendel crossed a tall plant with a short plant, he found that the resulting plants were all tall. However, when he crossed these tall plants among themselves, he observed that some of the plants in the next generation were short.

From these observations, Mendel concluded that there must be a pair of factors (genes) that determine each trait. He referred to these factors as dominant and recessive genes. The dominant gene is expressed, or "wins out," over the recessive gene, which remains hidden when both are present.

Based on this, the conclusion about one of Mendel's short pea plants would be:

B. It has a pair of recessive genes

Since the short plant is expressing the trait, it must have received a pair of recessive genes for that specific characteristic (in this case, height).