Using jpplantnames

jpplantnames is an unofficial R package for looking up scientific plant names from Japanese plant names using the Vascular Plant Japanese Name Checklist ver. 1.10.

The checklist is useful when your starting point is a Japanese plant name, such as コナラ, and you want the corresponding scientific name in a reproducible R workflow.

Installation

Install the package from GitHub:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("maple60/jpplantnames")

Then load it:

library(jpplantnames)

First Lookup

Use scientific_name() when you have a Japanese plant name and want the standard scientific name.

scientific_name("コナラ")
#> [1] "Quercus serrata"

If you want the author string as recorded in the checklist, set with_author = TRUE.

scientific_name("コナラ", with_author = TRUE)
#> [1] "Quercus serrata Murray"

The function is vectorized:

scientific_name(c("コナラ", "ミズナラ"))

How the Data Is Loaded

jpplantnames does not bundle or redistribute checklist data. The first call that needs the data downloads the checklist Excel file and stores it in the user’s local R cache.

You can also download or refresh the file explicitly:

japanese_name_download()
japanese_name_download(overwrite = TRUE)

Load the cached data as a regular data frame:

checklist <- japanese_name_load()
head(checklist)

To force a refresh before loading:

checklist <- japanese_name_load(refresh = TRUE)

Exact Lookup Behavior

scientific_name() is intentionally conservative:

• it exact-matches the checklist 和名 and 別名 columns;
• it only uses rows where ステータス is 標準;
• it returns NA_character_ when there is no standard exact match;
• it errors if more than one standard exact match is found, so you can inspect the candidates manually.

This behavior is designed for scripts and analyses where silent fuzzy matching would be risky.

Searching Candidates

Use japanese_name_search() when you want to inspect possible matches.

japanese_name_search("コナラ")

By default, japanese_name_search() searches Japanese names with partial matching. You can search specific fields:

japanese_name_search("Quercus serrata", field = "scientific")
japanese_name_search("ナラ", field = "alias")
japanese_name_search("コナラ", field = "all")

Use exact matching when you want only exact candidate rows:

japanese_name_search("コナラ", exact = TRUE)

A Practical Workflow

A typical workflow is:

1. Use scientific_name() for names that should be standard and unambiguous.
2. Use japanese_name_search() for names that return NA or need manual checking.
3. Keep both the original Japanese name and returned scientific name in your analysis table.
4. Cite the checklist when you use checklist-based names in a report, paper, or dataset.

Example:

plants <- data.frame(
  japanese_name = c("コナラ", "ミズナラ", "存在しない植物名"),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)

plants$scientific_name <- scientific_name(plants$japanese_name)
plants

Checking Names with GBIF

gbif_match() is a small optional helper around the GBIF species match API. Use it after obtaining a scientific name from the checklist when you want to check how the name is represented in an international biodiversity data source.

gbif_match("Quercus serrata")

This function requires the suggested package jsonlite.

Data Source and Citation

This package uses the Vascular Plant Japanese Name Checklist ver. 1.10 as the lookup source. The checklist includes YList-derived/update data, but this package is not affiliated with or endorsed by JBIF, YList, or the checklist authors.

When using checklist-based results, cite the checklist:

Yamanouchi, T., Shutoh, K., Osawa, T., Yonekura, K., Kato, S., Shiga, T. 2019. A checklist of Japanese plant names (https://gbif.jp/activities/checklist/wamei_checklist_110)

The package code is MIT licensed. Checklist data is not included in the package and is not covered by the package license.