Cardiospermum halicacabum - seeds

Cardiospermum halicacabum, also known as Heartseed or Love in a Puff, is a vigorous, tropical climbing plant, theoretically a perennial but easily grown as an annual. This charming plant is a medicinal plant with luxuriant vegetation and unusual lantern-shaped green fruits, similar to Physalis. It owes its name "heartseed" to its black seeds adorned with a small white heart. It is easy to sow and grow and clings to a fence, trellis, pergola, or teepee with tendrils. Its discreet flowers appear from summer to autumn.

Cardiospermum halicacabum is a plant of the soapberry family. It is a herbaceous climbing plant with a woody base native to tropical and subtropical regions of America (Texas, Florida, Bermuda), naturalised in Africa, Oceania, and India. In the wild, it is found along roads and rivers, in partial shade, in rich and moist soils. The plant rapidly develops highly branched stems that can reach 3 to 4 metres long in one season. They bear tendrils and leaves measuring 15 to 20 cm long. These decorative light green leaves are composed of 6 to 9 deeply toothed leaflets. This heartseed blooms from July to October. Its small cream-white flowers, with 4 petals and yellow stamens, measure less than 1 cm in diameter. They are gathered in small loose clusters, called corymbs, at the end of slender, 5 to 10 cm long stems above a pair of tendrils. After pollination, swollen, 2 to 3 cm long capsules are formed, changing from light green to yellow-ochre. Each contains 3 characteristic pea-sized, black seeds with a white heart-shaped hilum.

This exotic plant has many features: elegant foliage, curious fruits, unusual seeds, and medicinal properties. It thrives in warm and semi-shaded places, in rich and moist soils. It is a perfect plant to quickly dress up a pergola or a wire fence for the season. It will appeal to the curious and lovers of exoticism who can overwinter it in the conservatory. The large seeds of the heartseed are easy to handle and can be easily sown by children. It is perfect for flowering in a pot on the terrace all summer. To accompany it, consider Black-eyed Susans, sweet peas, or morning glories, for example.

Properties: leaves and stems are rich in flavonoids, tannins, and foaming saponins. In traditional medicine, the roots and seeds of the heartseed are used for their anti-inflammatory properties for rheumatism, to soothe itching related to eczema, or to calm itching and other redness.