Generate Herbarium Labels

Overview

The barroso_labels() function generates printable herbarium labels directly from field book spreadsheets or CSV files. Labels include specimen information, taxonomic authority, formatted locality descriptions, and location maps (with greater resolution for USA-based collections).

Taxonomic updates and authority strings are automatically fetched via the lcvplants package.

Main Capabilities

  • Formats collection records into standardized labels
  • Automatically retrieves and updates scientific names with taxonomic authorities
  • Produces mapped visual references (USA: county-level, Others: country-level)
  • Paginates and saves results as multi-page PDF files (6 labels/page)

Usage

barroso_labels(fieldbook = "fieldbook_collections.csv",
               dir_create = "results_herbarium_labels",
               file_label = "herbarium_labels.pdf")
  • fieldbook: Data frame or path to CSV containing specimen records
  • dir_create: Folder to output results (defaults to creating dated subfolder)
  • file_label: Base name for PDF output files

Required Fields

The function expects the following minimal columns in your input:

  • genus, species, family, recordedBy, recordNumber
  • stateProvince, country, locality, decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude

Optional enhancements: - vernacularName, plantDescription, vegetation, catalogNumber, addCollector, altitude, day, month, year

Output

  • A series of .pdf files are saved with six herbarium labels per page
  • Output directory is timestamped with current date

Example Fieldbook CSV (minimal):

genus,species,family,recordedBy,recordNumber,stateProvince,country,locality,decimalLatitude,decimalLongitude
Quercus,robur,Fagaceae,John Doe,102,Texas,USA,Austin,30.2672,-97.7431

Notes

  • For USA records, both state and county maps are shown.
  • For all other countries, only the country-level map is included.
  • Records without stateProvince will halt processing.
  • Labels are parsed into line breaks based on text length for improved readability.

See Also