The researcher who suggested particulate inheritance in the 1860s was Gregor Mendel. Mendel, an Austrian monk, conducted experiments with pea plants and discovered that traits such as flower color and seed shape were inherited in a predictable manner. He proposed that these traits were determined by discrete units of heredity, which we now refer to as genes. His work laid the groundwork for the field of genetics, demonstrating that inheritance follows specific patterns rather than blending parental traits. Although his findings were not widely recognized during his lifetime, they became crucial to our understanding of genetic inheritance and the principles that govern it.