Climbing herbs; stem and branches wiry, grooved, tendrillar. Leaves
alternate, exstipulate, biternate; leaflets coarsely dentate. Flowers polygamo-dioecious, ca 0.5 - 0.8 mm across, atoping coiled tendrils, in axillary racemes
or corymbs. Sepals 4 in two pairs; outer small; inner large. Petals 4 in two
pairs; upper pair with a suprabasal scale; lower with an inflexed appendage.
Disc with 2 glands. Stamens 8; filaments free or connate below, of unequal
lengths. Ovary sessile or subsessile, 3-loculed. Fruit an inflated, membranous,
trigonous, 3-celled, loculicidal1y 3-valved capsule. Seeds globose usually with
hilum at base.
Tropical America and Africa; ca 12 species, 2 in India.
Literature. MATTHEW, K.M. (1983). Flora of Tamil Nadu Camatic 1: 291-292.
Tropical America and Africa; ca 12 species, 2 in India.
Literature. MATTHEW, K.M. (1983). Flora of Tamil Nadu Camatic 1: 291-292.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
| 1a. Capsules pyriform, winged at the angles; seeds with large heart-shaped hilum | 2. Cardiospermum halicacabum |
| b. Capsules subglobose, ovate when young, not winged; seeds with small orbicular hilum | 1. Cardiospermum canescens |
