North American Heartseed Gardens: Carrotwood Trees and Heartseed Vines

Summary: Weeds in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Texas are courtyard carrotwood trees and indoor heartseed vines in North American heartseed gardens.

fruit and foliage of heartseed (Cardiospermum halicacabum), also known as balloon vine; Aquiles Serdán, Altamira municipality, Tamaulipas state, northeastern Mexico; Nov. 8, 2014: siergo niebla (siergoniebla), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

North American heartseed gardens allow climbing tropical vines to add exotic textures, lush colors and sinuous growth to northern Mexico and, with the exception of two states, to the southern United States.

Weed designations bar the presence and the proliferation of the native tropical North American woody plant in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina and Texas. Fast growth, flexible life cycles and viable seeds cause the versatile annual, biennial or perennial to carpet crops such as soybeans, low-lying vegetation, shrubs and soils. The member of the Sapindaceae family of soapberry-related shrubs, trees and vines native to the world's subtropical and tropical regions decreases crop yields and species diversity.

The environmental impacts upon agro-industrial production and upon landscape sustainability encourage exposing animals, people, places and plants to chemical controls that eliminate weeds and enrich soils.

Seedlings flaunt triangular embryonic leaves called cotyledons for heartseed, commonly called balloon vine, heart pea, love-in-a-puff and winter cherry and scientifically Cardiospermum halicacabum ("heartseed salt-barrel [fruit]").

Seedlings grow into climbing vines whose branched stems get mature, maximum lengths of 0.08 to 0.32 inches (2 to 8 millimeters) and stalked flowers and foliage. Compound foliage, on 0.39- to 2.24-inch- (10- to 57-millimeter-) long stalks and with three leaflets, hold alternate positions around heartseed stems in North American heartseed gardens. The length of each heartseed leaflet is 0.11 to 0.24 inches (2.8 to 6.2 millimeters) and the width 0.39 to 1.69 inches (1 to 4.3 centimeters).

Heatseed leaves join clasping tendrils to plant or soil anchorages and juggle elliptical, oblong, oval or triangular shapes with coarse-toothed to lobed margins and hairy surfaces.

Heartseeds, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), knows only branches, with equal-sized stalks, called racemes as the flowering plant's flower-clustered inflorescence.

Flowers 0.08 to 0.16 inches (2 to 4 millimeters) across look green-white with one pistil, four long and 4 short stamens, four petals and four sepals. Petals, sepals and stalks respectively manage 0.06- to 0.19-inch (1.5- to 5-millimeter), 0.03- to 0.16-inch (0.8- to 4-millimeter) and 0.04- to 0.16-inch (1- to 4-millimeter) lengths.

North American heartseed gardens navigate the no-man's-land of current and potential weed designations with bloom times from July to December and through cooperation with indoor cultivation.

The fruiting stages of heartseed vines offer inflated, three-sided 0.47- to 1.61-inch- (1.2- to 4.1-centimeter-) long, 0.59- to 1.73-inch- (1.5- to 4.4-centimeter-) wide fruits called capsules.

A buff-colored, heart-shaped attachment face patterns one-third or more of every gray-black, round, smooth seed face, each 0.19 to 0.20 inches (4.7 to 5.1 millimeters) across.

Temperatures of 68 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 35 degrees Celsius) at 0.39- to 1.97-inch (1- to 5-centimeter) depths quicken germination of 18-month viable seeds.

The state of Florida relegates to unwelcome weed status carrotwood, an introduced ornamental 32.81-foot- (10-meter-) tall evergreen tree native to Australia and related to heartseed vines. Globally warmed climate change smooths the way for subtropical and tropical introductions to spread farther northward than cold hardinesses and heat tolerances outside temperate regions suggest.

Outside Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Texas and inside courtyard and indoor North American heartseed gardens carrotwood's and heartseed's "evil tendencies" tend to cancel out.

Opened heartseed fruit shows seed arrangement; Stutensee, Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; Sept. 24, 2009: H. Zell, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

fruit and foliage of heartseed (Cardiospermum halicacabum), also known as balloon vine; Aquiles Serdán, Altamira municipality, Tamaulipas state, northeastern Mexico; Nov. 8, 2014: siergo niebla (siergoniebla), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/22048801@N03/15584562777/

Opened heartseed fruit shows seed arrangement; Stutensee, Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; Sept. 24, 2009: H. Zell, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cardiospermum_halicacabum_08.jpg

For further information:

"Cardiospermum halicacabum L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/28600004

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Frost, Robert. 1936. "Evil Tendencies Cancel." A Further Range. New York NY: Henry Holt and Co.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "Cardiospermum halicacabum." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 366-367. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358385