Solution

Mendel studied the common garden pea plant, Pisum sativum because it was easy to cultivate and had a relatively short life cycle of 3 months. The plant exhibited discontinuous characteristics such as flower color and pea texture. Owing to its anatomy, it was easy to control the self-pollination of the plant and cross-fertilization between desired parents could be accomplished artificially. The presence of pure breeding varieties and easily visible contrasting characters and presence of $$F_1$$ fertile hybrids were the additional advantageous characters for which Mendel chose garden pea as experimental material.