Using ylistjp • ylistjp

ylistjp is an unofficial R package for looking up scientific plant names from Japanese plant names using YList data.

YList is especially 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/ylistjp")

Then load it:

library(ylistjp)

First Lookup

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

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

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

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

The function is vectorized:

academic_name(c("コナラ", "ミズナラ"))

How the Data Is Loaded

ylistjp does not bundle or redistribute YList data. The first call that needs the data downloads the public tab-delimited YList file and stores it in the user’s local R cache.

You can also download or refresh the file explicitly:

ylist_download()
ylist_download(overwrite = TRUE)

Load the cached data as a regular data frame:

ylist <- ylist_load()
head(ylist)

To force a refresh before loading:

ylist <- ylist_load(refresh = TRUE)

Exact Lookup Behavior

academic_name() is intentionally conservative:

it exact-matches the YList 和名 column;
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 ylist_search() when you want to inspect possible matches.

ylist_search("コナラ")

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

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

Use exact matching when you want only exact candidate rows:

ylist_search("コナラ", exact = TRUE)

A Practical Workflow

A typical workflow is:

Use academic_name() for names that should be standard and unambiguous.
Use ylist_search() for names that return NA or need manual checking.
Keep both the original Japanese name and returned scientific name in your analysis table.
Cite YList when you use YList-derived 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$scientific_name <- academic_name(plants$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 YList 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 is not affiliated with or endorsed by YList. It is only a small R interface for working with the public YList tab-delimited data file.

When using YList data, cite the original source:

米倉浩司・梶田忠 (2003-)「BG Plants 和名－学名インデックス」（YList），http://ylist.info

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