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International Plant Names Index (IPNI) Scraper

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International Plant Names Index (IPNI) Scraper

Bulk-extract plant nomenclature records from IPNI (the International Plant Names Index — a collaboration between Kew Gardens, Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Botanic Gardens). IPNI is the authoritative global registry of published vascular plant names, covering over 1.7 million nomenclatural acts with full author provenance, protologue citations, and Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) scan links.

What you get

Each record includes:

Field Description
ipni_id IPNI record ID (e.g. 296689-1)
fq_id Fully-qualified LSID (e.g. urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:296689-1)
name Scientific name
authors Author string (abbreviated)
author_team Full author team with IPNI IDs and full name+dates (JSON)
rank Nomenclatural rank (spec., var., f., etc.)
family / genus / species / infraspecies Taxonomic decomposition
publication Protologue publication abbreviation
publication_year Year published
reference Full literature citation
collation Volume/page reference
has_bhl_links Whether BHL scans exist
bhl_page_link BHL deep-link to the protologue page
tl2_author / tl2_number Taxonomic Literature 2 provenance
suppressed Whether the name is suppressed
in_powo Whether accepted in Plants of the World Online
ipni_url Full IPNI URL

Optional enrichment mode (enrich: true) fetches the per-record detail endpoint to add original_remarks and type_locations.

Input

{
  "queries": ["Quercus robur", "Rosa canina"],
  "recordType": "",
  "enrich": false,
  "maxItems": 500
}
Parameter Type Description
queries string[] Required. One or more search terms. Each is paginated independently (50 results/page). Accepts genus names, species binomials, author abbreviations, or free text.
recordType string Optional filter: citation, name, author, or publication. Leave blank for all types.
enrich boolean Fetch the per-record /n/<id> detail endpoint for original_remarks, type_locations, and enriched BHL links. Slower but more complete. Default: false.
maxItems integer Maximum total records to return across all queries. Default: 15.

Use cases

  • Biodiversity informatics pipelines — resolve plant name strings against the authoritative nomenclatural index and attach full author provenance.
  • Herbarium digitisation — link specimen label names to IPNI records for authoritative citation and LSID anchoring.
  • AI training datasets — build botanical-nomenclature corpora with publication year, author team, and BHL scan provenance for LLM training.
  • Flora and checklist projects — bulk-retrieve name records for a genus or family with protologue citations and suppression flags.
  • Citation graph research — extract the author-team + TL2 provenance layer that POWO/GBIF/USDA do not carry.

Notes

  • The IPNI API is public with no authentication required.
  • No proxy is used — direct requests at polite concurrency (400 ms between pages).
  • Pagination is automatic: each query sweeps all available pages up to maxItems.
  • enrich: true adds a second HTTP request per record — increase maxItems conservatively.
  • IPNI covers vascular plants and some bryophytes; it is distinct from POWO (accepted taxonomy + distribution) and GBIF (occurrence data).
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