From >130 sources such as monographs, books, other scientific publications and herbarium collections we have extracted, digitized and harmonized trait measurements related to growth form, stems, armature, leaves and fruits of palms. This provides a new resource for studies in tropical ecology, rainforest evolution, paleoecology, biogeography, macroecology, macroevolution, global change biology and conservation. The paper is here and the data are accessible here.