A certain type of flower has two alleles for color (blue, purple), and two alleles for stem height (tall, short). A tall blue flower and a short purple flower are crossed, resulting in tall blue flowers, short blue flowers, tall purple flowers, and short purple flowers.

What law does this example demonstrate?

Gregor Mendel is a really important figure in genetics, his work on pea plants provided us with many of the fundamentals of genetics that we still have today!

Mendel proposed 3 laws:

1. The law of dominance - this law states that where there are two different alleles (heterozygous) the organism will always express the dominant trait over the recessive trait

2. The law of segregation - this law states that offspring will inherit one allele from each parent, because allele pairs separate in the process of meiosis, such that each gamete contains 1 allele of each trait. When the zygote is formed, it contains an allele from each parent.

3. The law of independent assortment - this law states that traits are independent from one another at the time of gamete formation. The genes are segregated separately from one another, as the presence of one does not impact the presence of another.

This example shows that all combinations of the height and color allele are possible, and therefore nicely demonstrates the law of independent assortment