Question

two yellow pea plants are crossed, producing an offspring plant with green peas. which term best describes the allele for the green pea plant? recessive homozygous dominant heterozygous

Explanation:

In Mendelian genetics, when two parents with a dominant trait (yellow peas) produce an offspring with a recessive trait (green peas), it indicates that the parents are heterozygous (carrying one dominant and one recessive allele). The recessive allele is only expressed when an individual has two copies of it. Since the green pea offspring appeared, the allele for green peas must be recessive. A dominant allele would have been expressed in the parents' phenotype if present in a homozygous or heterozygous state. Homozygous refers to having two identical alleles (either both dominant or both recessive), but the key here is the nature of the allele (dominant vs. recessive). Heterozygous means having two different alleles. The question asks about the term for the allele (not the genotype of the plant), so recessive is the correct term as it describes the allele's nature in relation to expression.

Answer:

recessive