Jene Formen, welche in der ersten Generation den recessiven Character erhalten, variiren in der zweiten Generation in Bezug auf diesen Character nicht mehr, sie bleiben in ihren Nachkommen constant.
Those forms which receive the recessive characteristic in the first generation do not vary any longer with respect to this characteristic in the second generation; they remain constant in their descendants.
In this and the following sentence, Mendel speaks in the present tense, thus formulating a general observation, rather than reporting results from the experiments he carried out. The clause after the semicolon in our translation is also a grammatically independent sentence in Mendel’s original text. That he separates it with a comma from the preceding statement indicates that he intended it to be a mere explication of what it means for recessives to “not vary any longer” in the second generation (F3), namely that they all produce offspring that share the same “recessive characteristic”. This is indeed what Mendel is going on to demonstrate.
forms = Formen See p. 3, s. 8.
recessive = recessiven See p. 10, s. 14.
character = Character See p. 14, s. 1.
first generation = ersten Generation Refers to what we would call F2 today (see p. 12, s. 3).
second generation = zweiten Generation This would consequently be F3 today.
constant = constant See p. 5, s. 5.