If Mendel's crosses between tall, spherical-seeded plants and short, dented-seeded plants had produced many more than 1/16 short, dented-seeded plants in the F2 generation, he might have concluded that:

A. the dented seed and short traits are unlinked.

B. he would not have concluded any of the above.

C. all traits in peas assort independently of each other.

D. the spherical seed and tall traits are linked.

Linked traits do not segregate independently during gamete formation. Mendel was probably very fortunate to have selected unlinked traits to study. Had he observed linked or partially-linked traits, it would have been more difficult to arrive at his theory that alleles of different genes assort independently during gamete formation.

E. all traits in peas are linked.