On Jul 26, 2010, at 9:07 PM, Adam Fikso wrote:

.......
One point that seems to be lost here is that Botanical Latin is a
separate, somewhat artificially created language composed mainly of
Latin and Greek with snatches of many other languages. The syntax is
mainly dictated by classical Latin, but the vocabulary has been built
gradually over almost three centuries since Linnaeus and codified by
nomenclatural committees of the International Botanical Congresses.
It is not classical Latin. Even if you choose to pronounce most of
it according to the Revised Academic Pronunciation (which is what we
were taught in U.S. high schools and colleges), there are words in
Botanical Latin that are not of Latin origin and thus are pronounced
as in their original languages. .......

John C. MacGregor