In biology, gonochorism (Greek offspring + disperse) or unisexualism or gonochory describes the state of having just one of at least two distinct sexes in any one individual organism. The term is most often used with animals, in which the individual organisms are often gonochorous. Gonochory is less common in plants. For example, in flowering plants, individual flowers may be hermaphrodite (i.e., bisexual, with both stamens and ovaries) or gonochorous (unisexual), having either no stamens (i.e. no male parts) or no ovaries (i.e. no female parts). Among flowering plant species that have un...

Dioecy (Greek: "two households"; adjective form: dioecious) is characterised by a species having distinct male and female organisms. This is opposed to hermaphroditic species, or more correctly, monoecious species, in which on one individual both male and female reproductive organs are present. Dioecious reproduction is biparental reproduction. The term dioecy is generally used for plants; gonochory is a synonym of dioecy that is generally used in reference to animals. The situation is somewhat more complicated for organisms which have an alternation of generations, such as land plants, si...