Houseplant Care & Pet-Toxicity Lookup 🌿 — GBIF + ASPCA

Check a plant's scientific name against GBIF and the ASPCA toxic-plant list, and get structured care metrics for the 100 plants of the free FloraDB sample. Every record carries a source URL, so each fact can be re-verified.

• Any other scientific name: verified live against the GBIF Taxonomic Backbone (accepted name, synonyms, family) and joined with the ASPCA dog/cat toxicity determinations. GBIF does not match common names, so a common name works only for the sample plants; any other common name returns no record.
• The 100 free-sample plants, by scientific name, synonym or common name: you also get light category, Lux band, watering interval, temperature range and target humidity. These are the same rows as the free FloraDB sample on GitHub, Kaggle and Hugging Face.

The full FloraDB snapshot is not in this Actor. Care metrics for all 270 curated houseplants, 891 ASPCA toxicity records and a 20,000+ species taxonomic index, in SQLite + CSV + JSON, are sold separately: floradb.dataengineered.io. For plants outside the sample, the care fields are empty and care_note says why.

What this Actor does

• 🐾 ASPCA pet toxicity: dog/cat determinations with clinical signs. toxicity_status is aspca_verified, conservatively aspca_genus_inferred, or unknown. A plant is never guessed "safe".
• 🔗 GBIF-verified taxonomy: accepted canonical names, synonyms preserved, and a gbif_source_url to re-verify each record.
• 🌱 Care for the free-sample plants: a Lux band, watering-day interval, temperature range and target humidity, each graded by care_confidence.
• 📋 Default list: run with no input to get the first 25 sample plants (maxPlants: 0 for all 100), or pass your own plantNames. A plant named twice is returned once.
• 🔎 Filters: by family, pet-safe only, or species-verified toxicity only.

Output: one item per plant

Field	Description
scientific_name, synonym_scientific_name	GBIF-accepted name + trade synonym
common_name, family	Common name (sample plants) + GBIF family
light_requirement_level, min_lux, max_lux	Light category + Lux band (sample plants; empty otherwise)
watering_frequency_days	Watering interval in days (sample plants)
min_temp_celsius, max_temp_celsius, ideal_humidity_percent	Climate targets (sample plants)
is_toxic_to_dogs, is_toxic_to_cats, is_toxic_to_horses	ASPCA flags (blank = unknown)
toxicity_symptoms, toxicity_status	Clinical signs + where the toxicity came from
care_confidence	high / medium / low grade of the care metrics (sample plants)
in_free_sample, care_note	Whether the plant is in the free sample; why care is empty otherwise
gbif_usage_key, gbif_source_url, retrieved_at, dataset_version	Provenance: retrieved_at is the run time; dataset_version dates the sample values

Export from the dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or via API.

Input

Run with no input to list the first 25 sample plants (set maxPlants to 0 for all 100), or configure:

{
  "plantNames": ["Monstera deliciosa", "Snake Plant", "Peace Lily"],
  "maxPlants": 25,
  "filterFamily": "Araceae",
  "onlyPetSafe": false,
  "onlyToxicityVerified": false,
  "requestDelaySecs": 1.0
}

How it works

1. A name that matches a free-sample plant (scientific name, synonym or common name) returns that plant's published sample row.
2. Any other name is checked against the GBIF backbone (sample plants make no GBIF call). If the accepted name is a sample plant, its sample row is returned; if GBIF finds no match, as for most common names, the name is skipped.
3. Otherwise the Actor joins ASPCA pet toxicity to the GBIF record, with safe-direction genus inference where a species isn't individually listed, and leaves the care fields empty.
4. It pushes one provenanced record per plant to the dataset.

Use cases

• "Is this plant safe for my cat?" features backed by ASPCA determinations.
• Name clean-up for plant catalogs and inventories: accepted GBIF names, synonyms and families.
• Prototyping plant-care apps or IoT planters on the 100 sample plants before licensing the full dataset.

FAQ

Which plants does it support? Any plant whose scientific name GBIF can resolve gets taxonomy and toxicity. Care metrics, and lookups by common name, cover the 100 free-sample plants only.

Where does the data come from? Taxonomy is verified live against the public GBIF API. Toxicity uses the public ASPCA Animal Poison Control toxic/non-toxic determinations. Care metrics are the published values of the free FloraDB sample.

Why are some fields empty? Coverage is honest. Toxicity is unknown, never "safe", when a plant isn't on the ASPCA list. Care fields are empty outside the free sample. Use onlyToxicityVerified or onlyPetSafe when you need complete safety data.

Can I get care data for more plants? Yes: the full snapshot covers 270 curated houseplants. See floradb.dataengineered.io or write to floradb@dataengineered.io.

License

The free-sample rows are licensed like the FloraDB free sample: CC BY-NC 4.0. Credit "FloraDB (floradb.dataengineered.io)"; no commercial use. For commercial use, license the full dataset. GBIF and ASPCA facts remain subject to their sources' terms; gbif_source_url and toxicity_status identify them.

Toxicity data is informational, not veterinary advice.

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Keywords: houseplant toxicity lookup, plants toxic to cats and dogs, ASPCA pet toxicity, GBIF taxonomy, plant name verification, houseplant care data, lux light requirements.