Question

You cross purple-flowered and white-flowered pea plants, and all offspring are purple. how come? select one:
a. none of the answers provided are true
b. the white flower is dominant
c. the genes for purple and white flowers are blended
d. the offspring were heterozygous

Answer 1

To solve this problem on genetic dominance, we will need a punnet square.

Let's let P represent purple-flowered and p represent white-flowered.

We have one purple flowered plant with the alleles PP, and we have one white flowered plant with the alleles pp. Using a punnet square, we can determine the alleles of the offspring.

       P     P
p|    Pp   Pp

p |   Pp   Pp

As we can tell from our punnet square, all of our offspring will have purple flowers. This is because the purple-flower allele is dominant and the white-flowered allele is recessive.

Since each flower has a dominant and recessive allele, they are heterozygous.

Therefore, the solution to this problem is D.