Heartseed
Cardiospermum microcarpum
Found in disturbed upland areas, rockland and other hammocks, pine flatwoods. FloraQuest, phone app (app page) What its natural habitat tells you
Native to Florida. How scores work Is it native here?
Profile 24%
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Rare or protected plant. Specialist conservation planting; excluded from routine garden suggestions. Plant caution source
Hidden from default planting suggestions. Wildlife value and native status remain unchanged.
At a glance
Not yet recorded · Height · Spread · Light · Soil · Life cycle · Leaves · Bloom
This plant is missing most of its facts, so Quercus is looking them up in old botany books.
Recorded in 18 Florida counties.
Natural habitats
Places it grows wild. Not a planting requirement. Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.
Dense, evergreen groves of live oak, magnolia and other hardwoods in the southern Coastal Plain, from dry oak domes to wet hydric hammocks and south Florida's tropical hammocks; salt-shaped maritime hammocks are maritime forests.
Flat, sandy Coastal Plain pine woodlands, wetter than sandhills and denser than savannas.
Who uses this plant?
6CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including FL
Genus host records with ranges including FL · Cardiospermum
- Amyna strictaEight-Spot Moth
- Chlorostrymon maesitesAmethyst Hairstreak
- Chlorostrymon simaethisSilver-Banded Hairstreak
- Cyclargus ammonNickerbean Blue, Miami Blue
- Cyclargus thomasiMiami Blue
- Strymon melinusGray Hairstreak
0BeesSoutheastern regional records
0Specialist beesPollen specialists
—BirdsRecorded genus food-resource interactions; not a state feeding claimNo records yet · Ants · Beetles · Flies · Adult butterflies / moths · Other wasps · Other insects
Plant details
- Family
- Sapindaceae
Conservation status
| Florida rank | S2S3 |
|---|---|
| Global rank | Not available |
| FL status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
Will it fit your yard?
Check this plant against your county, sun and soil moisture. Conditions are checked in your browser.
Sources
- Atlas of Florida Plants
- FloraQuest: Florida (Weakley), phone app (app page)
- NatureServe Explorer
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications