General description:- Trees, shrubs, woody climbers or rarely (as in the only European representative) herbs, with alternate, usually compound leaves.

Flowers:- Hermaphrodite, hypogynous, usually small. Sepals and petals 3-5, free; stamens 8, deflexed. Ovary superior, 3-locular, with one seed in each loculus.

CARDIOSPERMUM

General description:- Herbs, sometimes woody at the base.

Leaves:- Stipulate, ternately divided.

Flowers:- Sepals and petals 4.

Fruit:- An inflated, membranous capsule.