Final answer:
Mendel used garden pea (Pisum sativum) in his monastery for several reasons, including their ability to produce offspring that look like the parent, their short life cycle, and the ease of cultivating large quantities simultaneously.
Step-by-step explanation:
Mendel used Pisum sativum (garden pea) in his monastery for several reasons. First, garden peas are easily inbred, meaning they always produce offspring that look like the parent. This allowed Mendel to avoid unexpected traits in his experiments. Garden peas also have a short life cycle, allowing for multiple generations to be studied in a relatively short time. Lastly, large quantities of garden peas could be cultivated simultaneously, providing statistically significant results.