Which macro lens is better?

I want a macro lens for taking close up photos of flowers, and also small insects where it is difficult to get to close to them. Which of these lenses would be better for my purpose, and also which one would produce better quality photos:
Nikon AF-S Micro 60mm F2.8 G ED
or
Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 DI LD Nikon

Note: the Tamron is $200 CHEAPER

The 60mm is a real macro lens and will be great for flowers and stuff,

for insects a micro lens is used, for larger bugs a macro lens is fine

The Nikon 60mm/2.8 is a far superior lens, both in terms of reproduction ratio and in terms of image quality.It'll be too short to shoot insects though, as you have to get very close to them and scare them away. You'd need something like a 100mm macro lens for that.

That Tamron lens is NOT a macro lens. The manufacturer just puts that into its name because it has a relatively good reproduction ratio, but it's still far from actual macro cabability. I'd stay away from it, as it isn't a particularly useful telephoto lens either - slow and unstabilized.

In response to the other reply, there's no real distinction between macro and micro. Nikon happens to call its self-made macro lenses "micro" lenses, but that's just a name without any indication of functional differences compared to other real macro lenses made by other brands.

These were taken with the tamron:

it is a zoom lens… Not a macro - though has a "macro" facility…

you might want to look at the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 - that is a TRUE macro lens… And probably cheaper than the Nikon…

If you are buying new, then get the Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro, it is excellent and will auto-focus on motor-less Nikon's like the D3000/D5000 etc.