Bladdernut
Staphylea trifolia
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Bladdernut grows from Quebec through Minnesota south to Florida, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and eastern Kansas. It prefers shade and moist soils, especially nutrient rich bottomlands.
Fruit: A 3-5 cm long, 3-chambered, bladderlike capsule. They ripen in late summer.
Flowers: A 1/3" long bell-shaped flower arranged on a panicle. They begin white but later become light green or pink. They bloom from April to June.
Uses: Bladdernut is used as an ornamental for its attractive flowers. Its seed capsules are sometimes used in dried floral arrangements. The seeds can be eaten raw or cooked, and the seed oil can be used in cooking applications.
Ethnobotany: The dried seed capsules were used by the Meskwaki tribe in dances and ritual ceremonies in the past. The also used the seeds in gourds to make rattles.
Importance to wildlife: Pollinators are attracted to the flowers. Small mammals browse the leaves.
The bark of a bladdernut. Bark is greenish or grayish and striped with white.
A single leaf on a bladdernut. Leaves have 3, or rarely 5, leaflets. The terminal leaflet is long stalked.
Clearer foliage on a bladdernut. Leaves are 4-8 cm long, finely toothed, long pointed, green above, and paler and hairy beneath.
Buds on a bladdernut. Buds are 3-5 mm long, pointed, reddish brown or brown, mostly glabrous, with 4 scales visible. Bladdernuts don't have a terminal bud, but the topmost lateral buds are paired such as in this picture (the tissue to the right of the bud pair is a broken petiole, not another bud).
The twig of a bladdernut. Twigs are slender, rounded, glabrous, and green, brown, or yellow. This image also shows a bud that isn't paired.
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