Gregor Mendel distributed 40 reprints of his pea plant paper. The paper, titled “Experiments on Plant Hybridization,” was first presented in two talks to the Natural History Society of Brno in 1865 and printed in the society’s proceedings in 1866.
Mendel’s study described years of controlled breeding experiments with garden peas. He tracked seven pairs of contrasting traits, including seed color, seed shape, flower color, and plant height, and used numerical ratios to explain how inherited characteristics passed between generations.
The 40 reprints were intended to place his findings before scientists and naturalists beyond Brno. However, the paper attracted little attention at the time. It was treated largely as a specialized study of plant hybridization rather than as the foundation of a general theory of heredity.
Mendel’s work was rediscovered independently around 1900 by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak. Their work helped bring the forgotten 1866 paper to wider scientific notice and established Mendel as the founder of modern genetics.