Palm Trees

This week we’re exploring Palm Trees!

The dataset comes from the the PalmTraits 1.0 database via the palmtrees R package by Emil Hvitfeldt.

Plant traits are critical to plant form and function —including growth, survival and reproduction— and therefore shape fundamental aspects of population and ecosystem dynamics as well as ecosystem services. Here, we present a global species-level compilation of key functional traits for palms (Arecaceae), a plant family with keystone importance in tropical and subtropical ecosystems.

How does the sizes of the different species of palms vary across sub families?
Which fruit colors occur most often?

Thank you to Lydia Gibson for curating this week’s dataset.

The Data

# Using R
# Option 1: tidytuesdayR R package 
## install.packages("tidytuesdayR")

tuesdata <- tidytuesdayR::tt_load('2025-03-18')
## OR
tuesdata <- tidytuesdayR::tt_load(2025, week = 11)

palmtrees <- tuesdata$palmtrees

# Option 2: Read directly from GitHub

palmtrees <- readr::read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/main/data/2025/2025-03-18/palmtrees.csv')

# Using Python
# Option 1: pydytuesday python library
## pip install pydytuesday

import pydytuesday

# Download files from the week, which you can then read in locally
pydytuesday.get_date('2025-03-18')

# Option 2: Read directly from GitHub and assign to an object

palmtrees = pandas.read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/main/data/2025/2025-03-18/palmtrees.csv', encoding='windows-1252')

How to Participate

Explore the data, watching out for interesting relationships. We would like to emphasize that you should not draw conclusions about causation in the data. There are various moderating variables that affect all data, many of which might not have been captured in these datasets. As such, our suggestion is to use the data provided to practice your data tidying and plotting techniques, and to consider for yourself what nuances might underlie these relationships.
Create a visualization, a model, a Quarto report, a shiny app, or some other piece of data-science-related output, using R, Python, or another programming language.
Share your output and the code used to generate it on social media with the #TidyTuesday hashtag.
Submit your own dataset!

PydyTuesday: A Posit collaboration with TidyTuesday

Exploring the TidyTuesday data in Python? Posit has some extra resources for you! Have you tried making a Quarto dashboard? Find videos and other resources in Posit’s PydyTuesday repo.
Share your work with the world using the hashtags #TidyTuesday and #PydyTuesday so that Posit has the chance to highlight your work, too!
Deploy or share your work however you want! If you’d like a super easy way to publish your work, give Connect Cloud a try.

Data Dictionary

`palmtrees.csv`

variable	class	description
spec_name	character	Taxonomic name of species (binomial nomenclature) following the World Checklist of palms.
acc_genus	character	Accepted genus name from the World Checklist of palms.
acc_species	character	Accepted species name from the World Checklist of palms.
palm_tribe	character	Name of palm tribe from the World Checklist of palms.
palm_subfamily	character	Name of palm subfamily from the World Checklist of palms.
climbing	factor	Whether palm species has climbing habit or not, or both if populations vary in this trait.
acaulescent	factor	Whether palm species has an acaulescent growth form (leaves and inflorescence rise from the ground, i.e. lacking a visible aboveground stem) or not, or both if populations vary in this trait.
erect	factor	Whether palm species has an erect stem (rather than an acaulescent or climbing growth form) or not, or both if local populations vary in this trait.
stem_solitary	factor	Whether stems are solitary (single-stemmed) or clustered (with several stems), or both if populations vary in this trait.
stem_armed	factor	Whether bearing some form of spines at the stem or not, or both if populations vary in this trait.
leaves_armed	factor	Whether bearing some form of spines on the leaves or not, or both if populations vary in this trait.
max_stem_height_m	double	Maximum stem height.
max_stem_dia_cm	double	Maximum stem diameter.
understorey_canopy	factor<27915>	Understory palms are defined as short-stemmed palms with a maximum stem height ≤5m or an acaulescent growth form, canopy palms with maximum stem height >5m.
max_leaf_number	integer	Maximum number of leaves.
max__blade__length_m	double	Maximum length of the blade (the flat expanded part of a leaf as distinguished from the petiole).
max__rachis__length_m	double	Maximum length of the rachis (the axis of the leaf beyond the petiole).
max__petiole_length_m	double	Maximum length of the petiole (the stalk of the leave).
average_fruit_length_cm	double	Average length of the fruit as provided in a monograph or species description.
min_fruit_length_cm	double	Minimum fruit length as provided in a monograph or species description.
max_fruit_length_cm	double	Maximum fruit length as provided in a monograph or species description.
average_fruit_width_cm	double	Average width of the fruit as provided in a monograph or species description.
min_fruit_width_cm	double	Minimum fruit width as provided in a monograph or species description.
max_fruit_width_cm	double	Maximum fruit width as provided in a monograph or species description.
fruit_size_categorical	factor	Species classified into small-fruited palms (fruits <4cm in length) and large-fruited palms (fruits ≥4cm in length).
fruit_shape	factor	Description of fruit shape as provided in a monograph or species description.
fruit_color_description	character	Verbatim description of fruit color (e.g. red to dark purple, green to orange to red, purple-brown) as provided in a monograph or species description.
main_fruit_colors	character	Main fruit colors summarized from fruit color descriptions (black, yellow, orange, red, purple etc.).
conspicuousness	factor	Main fruit colors classified into conspicuous colors (e.g. orange, red, yellow, pink, crimson, scarlet) vs. cryptic colors (brown, black, green, blue, cream, grey, ivory, straw-coloured, white, purple).

Cleaning Script

# Clean data provided by {palmtrees} R package. No cleaning was necessary.
# install.packages("devtools")

devtools::install_github("EmilHvitfeldt/palmtrees")
library(palmtrees)
library(dplyr)

palmtrees <- palmtrees::palmtrees |>
  dplyr::mutate(
    dplyr::across(
      "max_leaf_number",
      as.integer
    )
  )