Gregor Mendel

Introduction & Top Questions
Education and early career
Experimental period
Theoretical interpretation
Latter years
Rediscovery

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Understanding genetics with pea plants and the Punnett square

Gregor Mendel's discovery of heredity laws

Illustration showing three edible pea plants: pink flowers on the left, white flowers on the right, and a hybrid with both colors in the center, demonstrating Mendelian inheritance.

Marble sculpture of Josef Gregor Mendel standing in robes with arms slightly outstretched, set on a pedestal with carved figures, located in Brno, Czech Republic.

At a Glance

Gregor Mendel summary

Quizzes

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.

Faces of Science

Illustrated strands of DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid, biology.

Genetics Quiz

Related Questions

How did Carl Erich Correns contribute to the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s laws?
How did Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg’s pea experiments relate to Gregor Mendel’s research?
How did Gregor Mendel control pollination in his pea-plant experiments?
How did Gregor Mendel develop the idea of dominant and recessive traits?
How did Gregor Mendel use mathematics to analyze inheritance patterns?
How did Gregor Mendel use the 3-to-1 ratio in pea plants?
How did Gregor Mendel’s experiments support the law of segregation?
How did Gregor Mendel’s results show that genes occur in pairs?
How did Gregor Mendel’s rural childhood influence his early education?
How did Gregor Mendel’s work become part of modern evolutionary theory?
How did Johann Mendel receive the name Gregor?
How did Thomas Hunt Morgan connect genes with chromosomes?
How did Wilhelm Johannsen clarify the difference between traits and genes?
How did William Bateson help spread Gregor Mendel’s ideas in Great Britain?
How did becoming abbot change Gregor Mendel’s ability to continue experiments?
How did chromosome behavior during meiosis provide evidence for Gregor Mendel’s law of segregation?
How did combinatorial mathematics help Gregor Mendel predict pea-plant offspring?
How did third-generation pea plants help Gregor Mendel test his conclusions?
How does a heterozygous pea plant produce gametes with different alleles?
How does the 9:3:3:1 ratio demonstrate independent assortment?
How does the genotype ratio of 1:2:1 relate to the phenotype ratio of 3:1?
How does the law of segregation explain the formation of gametes?
What does the law of independent assortment state about different gene pairs?
What result did Gregor Mendel obtain when he crossed yellow round peas with green wrinkled peas?
When and where did Gregor Mendel die?
When and where was Gregor Mendel born?
When did Gregor Mendel begin his major pea-plant hybridization experiments?
When did Gregor Mendel present his experimental results to the Natural Science Society in Brünn?
Where did Gregor Mendel study before joining the monastery?
Where was Gregor Mendel’s paper “Experiments on Plant Hybrids” published?
Which subjects did Gregor Mendel study at the University of Vienna?
Which three botanists independently rediscovered Gregor Mendel’s work in 1900?
Which visible traits did Gregor Mendel examine in garden peas?
Why can purple-flowered pea plants carry an allele for white flowers?
Why did Gregor Mendel become involved in a dispute over monastery taxes?
Why did Gregor Mendel conclude that hereditary traits do not blend together?
Why did Gregor Mendel enter the Altbrünn Augustinian monastery?
Why did short pea plants reappear in Gregor Mendel’s second generation of offspring?
Why did some Darwinian scientists initially oppose Mendelian inheritance?
Why were pure-breeding pea plants important to Gregor Mendel’s experiments?
Why is Gregor Mendel famous?
Who was André Michaux?
What were some of André Michaux’s contributions to botany?
What happened to André Michaux during the French Revolution?
What is Charles Darwin famous for?
What is evolution, as Charles Darwin understood it?
What was Charles Darwin’s educational background?
What was Charles Darwin’s family life like?
What were the social impacts of Charles Darwin’s work?

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External Websites

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - DNA Learning Center - Gregor Mendel
BBC Audio - Discovery - Bad Blood: The curse of Mendel
The Embryo Project Encyclopedia - Johann Gregor Mendel
ABC listen - Celebrating Gregor Mendel the father of genetics
Official Site of Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology
National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Johann Gregor Mendel: paragon of experimental science

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Gregor Mendel - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Gregor Mendel

botanist

Also known as: Gregor Johann Mendel, Johann Mendel

Written by

Robert Olby

Research Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. Author of Origins of Mendelism and Francis Crick, the Pied Piper of Molecular Biology, and others.

Robert Olby

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 23, 2026 •History

Gregor Mendel (born July 20, 1822, Heinzendorf, Silesia, Austrian Empire [now Hynčice, Czech Republic]—died January 6, 1884, Brünn, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic]) was a botanist, teacher, and Augustinian prelate, the first person to lay the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics, in what came to be called Mendelism. Born to a family with limited means in German-speaking Silesia, Mendel was raised in a rural setting. His academic abilities were recognized by the local...

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