How do Mendel’s experiments show that traits may be dominant or recessive ? [AICBSE 2015]

Mendel took pea plants with contrasting characteristics tall plant and dwarf (or short) plant. On cross pollination, he got all tall plants in first generation (F1). But by the self¬pollination of F1 tall plants, the plants of second generation consisted of tall and short pants in the ratio of 3 : 1. On the basis of these experiments, the characteristics appeared in first generation were called dominant (i.e. tall plants) and the characteristics that did not appear were called recessive (dwarf i.e. plants).