A Quick Introduction to the jpplantnames R Package

r
A short overview of the jpplantnames R package for looking up Japanese plant names, scientific names, and external database matches.
Published

2026-06-17

Modified

2026-06-17

This is a short overview of the jpplantnames R package, which I recently created. See the documentation below.

Installation and Loading the Library

Install the package as usual. At the moment, it is available only on GitHub, so install it with pak, remotes, renv, or a similar tool.

pak::pak("maple60/jpplantnames")
remotes::install_github("maple60/jpplantnames")
# renv::install("maple60/jpplantnames") # renvを使用している場合

After installation, load it with library().

Getting a Scientific Name from a Japanese Name

You can get a scientific name from a Japanese plant name with scientific_name(). The first run takes a little time because the data are downloaded. An internet connection is required at that point. From the second run onward, cached data are used, so the result is returned quickly.

scientific_name("コナラ")
scientific_name("コナラ", with_author = TRUE)
scientific_name(c("コナラ", "アカマツ", "イチョウ"))
japanese_name_search("Quercus serrata", field = "scientific")
japanese_name_search("Quercus serrata", field = "scientific", exact = TRUE)
japanese_name_suggest("タロヨウ")
gbif_match("Quercus serrata")
wfo_accepted_name("Quercus serrata")
wfo_suggest("Quercus serrata")
jp_info <- japanese_name_info("コナラ")
print(jp_info)
jp_info$summary
jp_info$japanese_name
jp_info <- japanese_name_info("コナラ", wfo = TRUE, gbif = TRUE)
jp_info$wfo
jp_info$gbif