• Scientists classify flowers in three main ways based on their blooms.crocuses first flower spring flower image by Pali A from Fotolia.com
  
  The Ask a Scientist website from the United States Department of Energy reports that anywhere from 230,000 to 270,000 different kinds of flowering plants exist in the world. The blooms on these plants fall into different categories based on the arrangement and position of the petals. These classifications help scientists determine how the plant reproduces and is pollinated. They also help gardeners to arrange gardens with plants having similar blooms.
  
  

Morphology

• As shown by the Dgreetings and Botanical-Online websites, you may classify flower blossoms based on the arrangement of petals, or corolla; this is known as classification by morphology. There are four types of flowers under this system.
  
  Actinomorphic: Flowers in this category have radial symmetry, meaning that sides are mirror images of each other no matter how you divide the blossom in two through the center.
  
  Zygomorphic: Zygomorphic blossoms display bilateral symmetry. These blossoms only have one dividing line that results in two identical sides.
  
  Sympetalous: In a sympetalous bloom, the corolla are joined either partially or completely. Some sympetalous blooms never open totally.
  
  Polypetalous: Polypetalous flowers have petals that are independent and not joined.
  
  

Arrangement

• Flower blossoms may be either single, cluster or inflorescent. Single flowers are not near another blossom. Cluster blooms occur when the plant produces several flowers in close proximity to one another. Cluster flowers make the blooms more noticeable to pollinating animals and insects as a whole. Inflorescent flowers are blooms of many small flowers. They are not necessarily clustered together, but the amount of blooms still makes the flowers easier to see.
  
  

Position

• Flower blooms that occur at the end of a branch or stem are called terminal blooms. Axillary blooms grow between between leaves and branches or stems. Terminal blooms are easy to cut for bouquets. However, axillary blooms still are desirable because blossoms are distributed over a wide area of the entire plant, and because they still are useful for crafts.