ABSTRACT
The species has been in India for so long that it has the Sanskrit names indravalli (Indra’s vine; Indra is the Hindu god of thunder and storms), Jyautishmati, and káravi. Having a name in an extinct language is taken by most people as good evidence of nativity to a particular region, and balloon vine qualifies. Moreover, there are common names in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telegu. The fact that these names all differ from one another, and from American names, further suggests a pre-Columbian history in the Indian region.
