Question

A blue-flowered African violet of unknown ancestry self-pollinated and produced 50 seeds. These seeds germinate and grow into flowering plants. Of these plants, 36 produce blue flowers and 14 produce pink flowers. What is the best explanation for the pink-flowered offspring?

Answer 1

Answer:

Pink flower color exhibited  a trait recessive to blue flower color.

Explanation:

Traits are characteristics of organisms that can be observed. A recessive trait is a trait that is expressed when an organism has two recessive alleles, or forms of a gene.

The blue-flowered African violet plant organizes its DNA into chromosomes which has two alleles for a trait. We are  being told, that the blue-flowered African violet plant has an unknown genetic  ancestry information. Probability are certain that at a particular point in time there are some ancestral generations that exhibit the pink flowers allele( which can be dominant or recessive at that time. There are also tendencies that the dominant blue-flowered allele mask the effects of the recessive pink-flowered alleles, and/or the recessive trait is even expressed like it occurs again as a result of the plant having two recessive alleles for its gene.

We can thereby concluded that, Pink flower color exhibited  a trait recessive to blue flower color.

Answer 2

Answer: The best explanation is that the flower has a recessive traits for pink-flower coloration

Explanation:

In genetics, recessive traits usually find expression in the second filial generation. At this stage there is a higher possibility of having a homozygous recessive gene which will find expression.

In the first generation, it is obvious that the blue-flower coloration has a dominance over the pink-flower coloration. However, on crossing of the first generation, it results in 14 homozygous plants for pink-flower coloration.