Herbaceous climbers with tendrils, dioecious, with occasional bisexual flowers
Leaves 3-foliolate, or biternately compound, usually stipulate; leaflets lobed, toothed, or cut
Flowers irregular; in axillary racemes or panicles; peduncle with a pair of tendrils at summit or with abortive pedicels
Sepals 4, broadly imbricate, anterior and posterior ones larger
Petals 4, with petaloid appendages, each with a hairy, reflexed lobe near apex
Disc unilateral, of 2 glands between petals and stamens
Stamens 8; filaments unequal, free or connate at base, linear, hairy
Ovary 3-locular, sometimes 3-angled, sessile or stalked; with a single, axile ovule in each locule, sometimes villous; style short, 3-fid, or styles free
Fruit an inflated, membranous capsule
Seeds black, globose, with a white, ovate to reniform hilum
x = 11 (7, 10)
Nomenclature:
Cardiospermum L.
Linnaeus: 366 (1753)
Sonder: 237 (1860)
Bowden: 508 (1966)
Fouilloy & Hallé: 16 (1973)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 12-20, predominantly tropical America
Southern Africa: Species 4, Namibia, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape
References:
BOWDEN, L.F. 1966. Cardiospermum L. Flora zambesiaca 2, 2
FOUILLOY, R. & HALLÉ, N. 1973. Sapindacées. Flore du Cameroun 16. Also reprinted in Flore du Gabon 23
LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum, edn 1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
SONDER, O.W. 1860. Sapindaceae. Flora capensis 1
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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