Mendel disproved the idea that, for autosomal traits, one parent contributes more to the next generation than another by crossing garden peas. What kind of cross helped him disprove this idea? test crosses back crosses reciprocal crosses self crosses Hide hint for Question 15 What does each of the terms above mean? Recall how Mendel used purple flowering and white flowering pea plants to show the phenotype of the male was irrelevant for flower colour. .