Botanical Latin

Botanical Latin is a technical language based on New Latin, used for descriptions of botanical taxa. Until 2012, International Code of Botanical Nomenclature mandated Botanical Latin to be used for the descriptions of most new taxa. It is still the only language other than English accepted for descriptions. The names of organisms governed by the Code also have forms based on Latin.

Botanical Latin is primarily a written language. It includes taxon names derived from any language or even arbitrarily derived, and consequently there is no single consistent pronunciation system. When speakers of different languages use Botanical Latin in speech, they use pronunciations influenced by their own languages, or, notably in French, there may be variant spellings based on the Latin. There are at least two pronunciation systems used for Latin by English speakers. All of these systems, however, will inevitably be unsustainable across the spectrum of botanical names.

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle described the language in 1880:

C'est le latin arrangé par Linné à l'usage des descriptions et, j'oserai dire, à l'usage de ceux qui n'aiment ni les complications grammaticales, ni les phrases disposées sens desus dessous." (Quoted by W. T. Stearn) [It is the Latin chosen by Linnaeus for the purpose of descriptions, and, I dare to say, for the use of those who love neither grammatical complications nor phrases arranged with senses on top of one another.]

De Candolle estimated that to learn Botanical Latin would take three months' work for an English speaker not already familiar with any language of Latin origin, and one month for an Italian.

William T. Stearn wrote:

Botanical Latin is best described as a modern Romance language of special technical application, derived from Renaissance Latin with much plundering of ancient Greek, which has evolved, mainly since 1700 and primarily through the work of Carl Linnaeus (1707–78), to serve as an international medium for the scientific naming of plants in all their vast numbers and manifold diversity. These include many thousands of plants unknown to the Greeks and Romans of classical times and for which names have had to be provided as a means of reference. Their description necessitates the recording of structures often too small for comprehension by the naked eye, hence unknown to the ancients and needing words with precise restricted applications foreign to classical Latin.

...
Wikipedia