Final answer:
In a Mendelian experiment, the tall pea plants with violet flowers crossed with short white-flowered plants had progeny with violet flowers and about half were short, indicating the tall parent's genotype as TtVV, or option (c).
Step-by-step explanation:
The Mendelian experiment described is a classic illustration of Mendel's law of inheritance, particularly focusing on the inheritance of two traits: plant height and flower color. In this experiment, tall pea plants bearing violet flowers were bred with short pea plants bearing white flowers. The fact that the progeny all bore violet flowers but almost half of them were short suggests that violet flower color is a dominant trait, while the height trait follows a typical Mendelian inheritance pattern.
Since all offspring had violet flowers, the allele for violet flowers must be dominant (V), and because the tall parent was crossed with a true-breeding short parent (which must be homozygous recessive (tt)), the tall parent must have the dominant allele for height (T). However, as about half of the progeny were short, the tall parent must have been heterozygous for the height trait (Tt). Therefore, the correct genetic makeup of the tall parent for both traits can be depicted as TtVV, which matches option (c).
Correct Option in Final Answer
The genetic makeup of the tall parent is (c) TtVV.