[nl]

Some people (a fairly significant number) find it much easier to parse information presented in English sentences as opposed to the presentation forms typical in structured data (often table form, with some kind of filtering).

In many cases, it is very rare for facts like those presented in botanical databases to change: it often means a plant has been recategorized, which is a non-trivial thing to do. It is entirely appropriate for this to be handled manually, given how rare it is.

Your arguments about it being better to work on a structured version present a false dichotomy: it isn't Wikipedia OR a structured version, it is Wikipedia AND structured data that need to be improved.