I've seen a lot of information lately about intestinal flora or gut flora but I was under the impression that flora refers exclusively to plant life. So how did bacteria come to be called flora? I am aware that they aren't really animals either, but naming them after plant life seems... wrong.
To confuse matters further, aquariums often suffer from a condition called bacterial blooming which has nothing to do with flowers.
P.S. There is indeed a Yahoo Answers! post about this topic, but it would be nice to have a more language-based discussion.