Final answer:
The garden pea was ideal for studying inheritance due to its true-breeding nature, short life cycle, and ability to be grown in large numbers, providing a clear, statistical basis for understanding hereditary patterns.
Step-by-step explanation:
The garden pea, Pisum sativum, was an excellent model system for studying inheritance for several reasons. One key reason was its ability to self-fertilize, resulting in true-breeding plants. Such plants consistently produce offspring with traits that are identical to the parent, which greatly simplifies the analysis of inheritable characteristics. In addition, garden peas have a short life cycle, allowing multiple generations to be studied within a single season. Lastly, pea plants can be grown in large numbers, providing a strong statistical basis for the inheritance patterns observed by Mendel.