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Kardiasperma is an extinction genus of in the hazelnut family, Betulaceae, containing the single species Kardiasperma parvum. The species is solely known from the middle Eocene sediments exposed in north central Oregon and was first described from a series of isolated fossil nuts in .
The genus and species was described from a series of type specimens, the holotype specimen USNM 435077, which is currently preserved in the paleobotany collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and thirty-seven paratype specimens. Eighteen of the paratypes are also in the national Museum collections, while three are in the University of Florida collections, and the remaining four specimens are part of the University of California Museum of Paleontology. The fossils were part of a group of approximately 20,000 specimens collected from 1942 to 1989 by Thomas Bones, Alonzo W. Hancock, R. A. Scott, Steven R. Manchester, and a number of high school students.
The Kardiasperma specimens were studied by paleobotanist Steven R. Manchester of the University of Florida. He published his 1994 type description for K. parvum in the journal Palaeontographica Americana. In his type description Manchester noted the genus is derived from the Greek language words Kardia meaning "heart" and sperma meaning "seed". The specific epithet parvum, Latin for "small, was chosen in reference to the small size of the locule casts. The fossils are noted to be nearly identical to fossils of the related and also extinct Betulaceae genus Palaeocarpinus from North Dakota. The two genera are separated on the basis of the notable size difference between the Palaeocarpinus and Kardiasperma fossils and the lack of a surrounding bract on the Kardiasperma. In 2021, compression fossils from the Clarno formation outside the nutbeds were described by Julian E. Correa-Narvaez and Steven Manchester as Palaeocarpinus parva, a very small fruited species that closely matches the dimensions of K. parvum.
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