Although the ratio of 3 to 1 in which contrasted characters reappear in the second or F_2 generation is sometimes referred to as Mendel's Law of Heredity, the really significant discovery of Mendel was not the 3 to 1 ratio, but the segregation of the characters (or rather, of the germinal representatives of the characters) which is the underlying cause of the appearance of the ratio. Mendel saw that the characters with which he worked must be represented in the germ-cells by specific producers (which we may call factors), and that in the fertilization of an individual showing one member of a pair of contrasting characters by an individual showing the other member, the factors for the two cha…
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