Figure caption scientific names + symbols in textGrob gtable

Question

First of all I would like to thank Sir Baptiste for helping me improve my R script by adding a caption at the bottom left the of the combined plots using gtable/textGrob as

Answer 1

Based on the comments, I suggest the following strategy: create a dummy plot with your figure caption (text) as legend title, extract its legend, and place it at the bottom of your gtable.

library(grid)
library(gridExtra)
library(ggplot2)
library(gtable)

p1 <- ggplot()
p2 <- ggplot(ToothGrowth, aes(len, dose, shape=supp)) + geom_point() +
  theme(legend.position="bottom", 
        legend.background=element_rect(colour="black")) 

title <- expression("Figure 1. This "*italic(is)*" now a legendary caption")
dummy <- ggplotGrob(p2 + guides(shape = guide_legend(title = title)))

g1 <- ggplotGrob(p1)
g2 <- ggplotGrob(p2)
caption <- gtable_filter(dummy,"guide")[["grobs"]][[1]]
caption$widths <- grid:::unit.list(caption$widths)
caption$widths <- unit.c(unit(0,"mm"), caption$widths[2], unit(1,"null"))

g <- rbind(g1, g2)
g <- gtable::gtable_add_rows(g, unit(2,"mm") + grobHeight(caption), -1)
g <- gtable::gtable_add_grob(g, caption, nrow(g), l = 4, r = ncol(g))
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(legend)
grid.draw(g)