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Kew POWO Plants of the World Online Scraper

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Kew POWO Plants of the World Online Scraper

Scrape the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Plants of the World Online (POWO) database — the global authoritative taxonomic backbone for vascular plants. Search by name, family, or genus and retrieve full taxonomic records including classification, native distribution (TDWG region codes), synonyms, lifeform, and bibliographic citations for up to 1.4 million taxonomic names (WCVP).

What Is POWO?

Plants of the World Online is maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It is the authoritative name-resolution backbone that GBIF, iNaturalist, and most botanical data pipelines reconcile against — covering approximately 400,000 accepted vascular plant species plus over 1 million synonyms, varieties, and infraspecific taxa.

What Data Is Returned?

Each record includes:

  • Identity: POWO fqId (LSID), IPNI identifier, scientific name, author citation, rank, taxonomic status
  • Classification: full lineage from kingdom to species (Plantae, Streptophyta, class, subclass, order, family, genus, species)
  • Distribution: native TDWG region codes (pipe-separated, e.g. GBR|IRE|FRA|...)
  • Names: synonyms (pipe-separated), basionym reference, accepted name for synonyms
  • Profile: lifeform (tree / shrub / herb), climate zone, year published, bibliographic citation, nomenclatural code and status
  • Taxonomy counts: number of accepted child taxa (subspecies / varieties / species within a genus)
  • Media: primary profile image URL, canonical POWO page URL

Input

Field Type Description
query string Name query (e.g. Quercus, Rosaceae, Quercus robur). Leave empty to enumerate all taxa.
familyFilter string Restrict to a specific plant family (e.g. Fagaceae).
rankFilter string Filter by rank: SPECIES, SUBSPECIES, VARIETY, GENUS, FAMILY.
acceptedOnly boolean Return only taxonomically accepted names (default: false).
hydrateTaxa boolean Fetch full taxon detail per result (default: true). Set false for lightweight search-only data.
maxItems integer Maximum number of records to return.

Example Use Cases

All accepted oak species:

{
  "query": "Quercus",
  "rankFilter": "SPECIES",
  "acceptedOnly": true,
  "maxItems": 500
}

Full Rosaceae family export:

{
  "familyFilter": "Rosaceae",
  "maxItems": 60000
}

Single species lookup:

{
  "query": "Quercus robur",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Notes

  • Polite use: this actor uses 800 ms inter-request delay as requested by Kew's conscientious-use notice.
  • With hydrateTaxa: true (default), each result triggers a second API call to the taxon endpoint for full classification, distribution, and synonym data.
  • Native distribution uses TDWG WGSRPD region codes (e.g. GBR, FRA, SPA_SP).
  • No API key required. The POWO API is fully public.

Data Source

  • API: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/2/
  • Underlying database: World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) and IPNI
  • Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
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