A recessive trait is a characteristic that can be masked by a dominant trait in an organism's genetic makeup. For a recessive trait to be expressed, an individual must inherit two copies of the recessive allele, one from each parent. If only one recessive allele is present, the dominant allele will determine the organism's appearance. In genetics, alleles are different forms of a gene. For example, in the case of flower color in pea plants, the allele for purple flowers is dominant, while the allele for white flowers is recessive. Therefore, only plants with two white flower alleles will display white flowers.