Botany Rules 5: New Rules Allowing Descriptions in Latin or English

acacia in Australia

  I wrote last time about the IAPT--International Association of Plant Taxonomists--the group that set up the rules of plant names. Changes are proposed and the rules gradually change. Many rules go back decades but the work of the International Association of Plant Taxonomists goes on. 

   The big news from the International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne Australia in 2011 was that the IAPT changed the rule that required the official description of a new plant to be in Latin. When Linnaeus set up our taxonomic system, he wrote in Latin. For centuries, new plants and animals were described in Latin.