R. C. Punnett conducted experiments on the inheritance of traits in the sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus. In one experiment, he crossed two different true-breeding sweet pea plant strains, one with erect petals and long pollen, and the other with hooded petals and round pollen. All the offspring ( generation) had erect petals and long pollen (Figure 1). The figure presents the crossing of two different strains of sweet pea plants. In the Parental Generation, a strain with Erect Petals and Long Pollen is crossed with a strain with Hooded Petals and Round Pollen. The cross produces an F 1 generation with Erect Petals and Long Pollen. Figure 1. Sweet pea plant cross Next, Punnett allowed the generation to self-fertilize and recorded the phenotypes of their offspring. The data are shown in Table 1. Table 1. results of self-fertilization cross Phenotype of Number of Offspring Erect petals, long pollen765 Erect petals, round pollen62 Hooded petals, long pollen71 Hooded petals, round pollen220 Total1,118 Question Skip to navigation