Continuing, "But each pair of differentiating characters, on the other hand, unite in the hybrid to form a new character, which in the progeny of the hybrid is usually variable. The object of the experiment was to observe these variations in the case of each pair of differentiating characters, and to deduce the law according to which they appear in successive generations. The experiment resolves itself therefore into just as many separate experiments as there are constantly differentiating characters presented in the experimental plants."
This was the key, each parent donated a transmission element to the hybrid. These elements combined in the hybrid to produce a new character, and in subsequent progeny from these hybrids, the original characters sorted themselves out according to laws, which Mendel felt he had untangled.
Had Mendel been a more effective presenter, he would have paused dramatically at this point, and then rammed home the significance of his findings. Brother Timothy held his breath. An effective communicator himself, he recognized that Mendel had reached a critical point in his paper. He need not have worried. In that cold, Realschule auditorium, Mendel, the discoverer of a new branch of biological science, turned the page of his notes, continued his talk in the only way he knew, and vanished from the pages of science history for 30 years.
"Each two of the differentiating characters enumerated above were united by cross-fertilization," he said, and because he never made an unsubstantiated statement, he went on, "There were made for the
The data and the details droned on and on. Even his friends from the monastery and his old schoolteacher, try as they might, lost interest as Mendel explained every tiny aspect of pea plant growth and differentiation. Even the upright Germans began to slump in their chairs, and the less patient Grunewald took out another cigar and pointedly lit it. This was not what he had come to hear.