The principles that govern heredity were discovered by a monk named Gregor Mendel in the 1860's. Mendel worked with pea plants. Since pea plants are capable of self fertilization, Mendel was able to produce true-breeding plants.

Mendel experimented to find out what would happen if he cross-pollinated a true-breeding yellow pod plant with a true-breeding green pod plant. He referred to the two parental plants as the parental generation (P generation) and the resulting offspring were called the first filial or F1 generation.

The F1 generation is the hybrid offspring produced in the cross pollination of P generation plants.

Image Credit: The cross-pollination between a true-breeding green pod plant and a true-breeding yellow pod plant results in all green offspring. The resulting offspring is the F1 generation. © Steve Berg, used with permission.

More Information:

• Mendel's Law of Segregation
  
• Independent Assortment
  
• Chromosomes and Gender