Particulate inheritance traits are inherited from one generation to the next. Blending inheritance was the common ideal at the time, but was later discredited by the experiments of Gregor Mendel. Mendel proposed the theory of particulate inheritance by using pea plants ("Pisum sativum") to explain how variation can be inherited and maintained over time. Since Mendel used experimental methods to devise his particulate inheritance theory, he developed three basic laws of inheritance: the Law of Segregation, the Law of Independent Assortment, and the Law of Dominance: Mendel's experiment with tall and short pea plants demonstrates how each individual plant has two particles
Franz Unger of botany at the University of Graz and also taught at the Joanneum (which became the Universalmuseum Joanneum and the Graz University of Technology); in 1850 professor of plant physiology in Vienna. In 1852 he travelled to Northern Europe and to the Orient. Unger retired in 1866 and lived on his farm near Graz. Unger was one of the major contributors to the field of paleontology, later turning to plant physiology and phytotomy. He hypothesized that (then unknown) combinations of simple elements inside a plant cell determine plant heredity and greatly influenced the experiments of his student Gregor Johann Mendel.