The first is a Marigold (tagetes), the second is a Camellia and the last is a Stapeliad of some sort, perhaps a Taveresia species?

Ryan

Your query deals with horticulture, not botany!!!
May I suggest that you avail yourself of a good dictionary and find the definition of botany. Horticulture is the science of growing and using plants...which is your interest.

MalaysiaFlowers,

Want some simple online botany to be the well educated horticulturist? Try the link below.

waynesword.palomar.edu/wayne.htm

Enjoy!

Confusing botany and horticulture is very common. If you want to be a good gardener/horticulturist, it helps to know basic plant structure, how plants grow, etc so, a basic background in botany is helpful.

"Master Gardener" programs offered by Extension Services across the country include a segment on Botany. Below is an elementary course on the Ohio State Website that should get you off to a good start. If you want to know more, you know there are plenty of botanists here willing to answer your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Master Gardener Botany

If you simply want identifications of some plants, go to the Name That Plant! forum.

I recommend going to your local library where you can take out any number of books..on botany, horticulture, landscape design and just some good old ID references as well as those wonderful oversized books full of incredible eye-candy garden pictures. I also suggest you start ordering some plant catalogs ...all the seriously good ones will give you not only growing information but also historical facts and genus info as well. I think that for anyone starting off in ANY new subject , we need reading material , lots of it, and plenty of material that we can keep with us permanently to study periodically when we have the time.

taxonomist...I'm noticing that there doesn't seem to Be a "horticulture" forum on Garden Web. So I can see how people might choose this forum as the second best place to ask certain things that don't fit into a specific category.

People on GW are quick to recommend "your local [whatever]". I read where the Universal Service Provision Programme for
Rural Libraries in Malaysia has made "tremendous strides". Perhaps whitejade has made a good suggestion. I would add that if one is new to gardening and flowers that horticulture and soil are better places to start than is botany. Wikipedia had a good soil site the last time I looked (Wikipedia is temporarly down. I suggest that later today you check there for keywords; horticulture, soil, gardening.)

re: Botany 101
I wish to assume that most public libraries possess a copy or two of Peter Raven's 'Biology of Plants'.
There exists an online interactive website pertaining to this work that might be of interest...
Biology of Plants; Raven;Evert,and Eichorn

http://www.whfreeman.com/raven6e/index.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: book site

Wikipedia has a lot of links under keyword "agronomy".

For a basic understanding of botany - and yes, I do agree that a possession of the basics will increase your gardening skills - I'd suggest "Botany for Gardeners" by Brian Capon. This is a classic horticulture textbook that presents the information in an easily understood yet still scientific format. Available through Timber Press for $17.95.

Thank you all for your useful info. There are now many areas for me to start. Maybe one day, I will be able to easily identify plants just by looking at them. :)

By the way, I don't think the second picture is a camellia..it looks just like your common rose - look at the leaves.

And your last pic is not a Tavaresia but Stapelia gigantea.

I would have to agree with Calvin, It's a rose rather than a Camellia.

The picture you've labeled as a sunflower looks to me like some new variation of gerbera daisy.

For fun and a great learning experience, try taking a Botany class at your local community college. I'm just finishing my first semester in Botany. The professor is enthusiastic and helpful, and has so many fascinating stories to tell. We spent several weeks learning how to identify plants by their flowers.It's a beautiful science.

...well that's a bit of good news, Kathy. Thank you for your post...

I just found this link (I had it stashed in my "to be sorted" folder.) http://waynesword.palomar.edu/bot115.htm

It has scores of links to introductory academic and quasi-academic botany.

Here is a link that might be useful: Botany 115

I found the link below titled "Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook". It would appear to get rather serious rather quickly.

This post is FYI only.

Here is a link that might be useful: Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook

This poster has a habit of changing the pictures so that any identifications that have been made in the past (we've seen them in the Name that Plant Forum) are null and void after a day or so.

I've suggested that he/she order several seed and/or plant catalogs to use as good picture books for annual and perennial identification.

Albert - the "Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook" link could be dangerous. I spent way too much time surfing from one page to another when I should have been working, but I actually found a former graduate student buddy along the way. There are also links to online keys that will be useful. I wish I'd had those a couple of months ago when someone posted asking for plant ids for a school project.