# How to Collapse Dendrogram Branches to n Number of Leaves
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** plotting, statsplots
**Created:** [February 26, 2025, 6:01am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323 "2025-02-26T06:01:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ZVerdup](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ZVerdup)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2025, 6:01am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323/1 "2025-02-26T06:01:16Z")
Hi, I need some guidance on how to handle the readability of dendrograms plotted using thousands of observations. I want to use to dendrogram to decide how many clusters I should use for further analysis.
My current strategy is to collapse the branches so that there are only a limited number of leaves, say 10. Ideally, the number under the leaf would be the quantity of observations contained therein. I would then want to print out the indices from the data within that leaf. I have seen similar functionality in Matlab and in the truncate options of R, but I can’t seem to find anything in Julia. Can it be done by a novice such as myself? Here’s a simple working example:
```julia
using Clustering, Random, Distances, StatsPlots
# Set seed for reproducibility
Random.seed!(42)
# Generate a random dataset with 1000 observations and 8 attributes
num_observations = 1000
num_attributes = 8
data = rand(num_observations, num_attributes) # Random values between 0 and 1
# Compute the pairwise distance matrix (Euclidean distance)
distance_matrix = pairwise(Euclidean(), data, dims=1)
# Perform hierarchical clustering
hclust_result = hclust(distance_matrix, linkage=:ward)
plot(hclust_result)
```
The resulting plot is shown below. Could anyone help me to implement my plan or convince me that there’s a better way? Yes, Im new to Julia and new to discourse.julialang, thank you so much for your help. Cheers!
---
### Author:  [@bertschi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertschi)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323/2 "2025-02-26T17:10:08Z")
Ok, this seems to work … and here is how I found it:
```julia-repl
julia> hclust_result |> typeof
Hclust{Float64}
julia> methodswith(Hclust)
[1] getproperty(hclu::Hclust, prop::Symbol) @ Clustering ~/.julia/packages/Clustering/M6mjF/src/deprecate.jl:25
[2] propertynames(hclu::Hclust) @ Clustering ~/.julia/packages/Clustering/M6mjF/src/deprecate.jl:20
[3] propertynames(hclu::Hclust, private::Bool) @ Clustering ~/.julia/packages/Clustering/M6mjF/src/deprecate.jl:20
[4] cutree(hclu::Hclust; k, h) @ Clustering ~/.julia/packages/Clustering/M6mjF/src/hclust.jl:810
help?> cutree
search: cutree hclust_result ClusteringResult AbstractUnitRange
cutree(hclu::Hclust; [k], [h]) -> Vector{Int}
...
julia> foo = cutree(hclust_result; k = 5)
1000-element Vector{Int64}:
1
2
1
1
3
# Seems to return the cluster ID of each sample ...
# Fun (but inefficient) APL-like one-liner to get sets of indices for each
julia> getindex.(Ref(eachindex(foo)), eachrow(unique(foo) .== foo'))
5-element Vector{Vector{Int64}}:
[1, 3, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 20, 22, 26 … 939, 944, 951, 958, 965, 972, 981, 982, 989, 1000]
[2, 7, 9, 18, 21, 25, 27, 29, 32, 34 … 975, 977, 979, 980, 983, 985, 987, 996, 997, 998]
...
```
```julia
```
---
### Author:  [@ZVerdup](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ZVerdup)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323/3 "2025-02-26T17:16:28Z")
I was aware of cutree, but you helped me understand it better. Thanks! Though, I’m trying to plot the resulting “cut” dendrogram. I’m afraid there is not an easy way yet…?
---
### Author:  [@bertschi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertschi)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-collapse-dendrogram-branches-to-n-number-of-leaves/126323/4 "2025-02-26T17:36:43Z")
Ok, not sure if there is a builtin way. How would you like the plot to look like, i.e., how would you do it in R?
A quick and dirty way might be to just limit the y-scale, i.e., sort of like cutting at that height: `plot(hclust_result; ylim = (4.3, Inf))`