An annual or perennial climber up to 3.5 m tall. Leaves alternate, deltoid, biterate, 3 to 8 cm long, petioles 2 to 3.8 cm long, leaflets rhomboid-lanceolate. Flowers white, 3 to 4 mm long, in few flowered umbellate cymes, with a pair of peduncles modified into tendrils. Fruit capsules, depressed pyriform, 3 valved, covered with bladder like calyx, winged at the angles. Seeds globose, black, smooth, 4 to 6 mm, heart-shaped aril.

Diaphoretic, diuretic, emetic, emmenagogue, laxative, refrigerant, rubefacient, stomachic, antiinflammatory, antibacterial and inhibits heart activity in dogs subjected to anesthesia (seed); laxative and emetic (root).

Cardiospermum halicacabum
PIER
Plants for a Future

Fatty acids and esters (seed oil), alkaloids (seed), a saponin (plant).

Pain and rheumatism (plant paste); earache, rheumatism, as a poultice on swellings (leaf), lowers blood pressure, to treat stomach diseases, rat-poisoning, snake-poisoning, cough with fever, scrotal enlargement, alopecia, anaemia and jaundice.

Chandel et al., Biodiversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India.