sexualistn.

1790 W. Smellie Philos. Nat. Hist. I. 246 Here, then, the analogy stops; and, instead of bringing aid to the sexualist, operates powerfully against his favourite hypothesis.

1822 S. Clarke Hortus Anglicus II. 576 The sexualists maintain, that the use of the insect was to carry the pollen of the male to the female flower.

1839 J. Lindley Introd. Bot. (ed. 3) i. iii. 261 It was difficult for sexualists to believe that plants of so large a size were destitute of such organs [of fecundation].

1981 Isis 72 122/1 Delaporte explains how both the ‘sexualists’, who believed in the sexuality of plants, and the ‘agamists’, who denied plant sexuality, performed experiments and drew analogies between plants and animals.

1993 L. L. Schiebinger Nature's Body (2004) 13 Geoffroy and Valliant, both ardent sexualists, insisted that the stamens, now seen as male, were ‘most noble’ and performed an essential role in generation.