• "Daisy Field" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: *clairity* (Sharon Mollerus) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
  
  

Common Names

• A common name is what the general public uses to classify a plant. Some common names of flowers are dandelion, tulip, forget-me-not, daisy and jack-in-the-pulpit.
  
  

Scientific Names

• Scientific names are written in Latin, describing the genus and species of each plant. Species refers to the individual type of plants, while genus is the next higher level of classification that is almost always a grouping of several closely related species.
  
  

Dicots and Monocots

• Flowering plants are divided into two different subclasses, based on whether the embryo produces one or two cotyledons, when the shoot first emerges from the embryo. These subclasses are called Monocotyledonae (monocots) and Dicotyledonae (dicots)
  
  

Superorders and Orders

• From the two groupings of monocots and dicots, flowering plants are broken down into 10 superorders and then further divided into numerous orders.
  
  

Family

• Family is a plant classification level, where flower groups become very similar. Some common names of plant families include the rose family, the arrowhead family, the cactus family and the orchid family.
  
  

Subfamily

• Sometimes it is necessary to divide a family of plants into subfamilies. This is especially true in some of the larger family groups, such as the Composite family. Coltsfoot, sunflowers, black-eyed Susans and dandelions are all considered to be composite flowers.