Bumald's bladdernut is an East Asian shrub named for its puffy, papery seed pods that look like little inflated bladders. It grows wild in Japan, Korea, and China, not in the US, but it's planted in some American gardens and arboretums. It's also called Japanese bladdernut.
Appearance
- Growth form
- A deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub, usually about 6–16 ft (2–5 m) tall in the wild; garden plants often stay smaller, around 4–6 ft (1.2–2 m). It can spread by .
- Leaves
- Leaves are opposite and split into three finely toothed leaflets, each about 1.5–2.5 in (4–6 cm) long. New leaves can have a bronze tint, and fall color may turn reddish.
- Flowers
- Small, creamy-white flowers come in upright clusters at the branch tips in late spring.
- Flowering time
- May–June
- Fruit
- The fruit is an inflated, slightly flattened two-part capsule about 1 in (2.5 cm) across, green at first and drying to brown. Inside are glossy yellowish seeds.
Look-alikes
American bladdernut's pod usually has three lobes and can reach about 1.5 in (4 cm), while Bumald's bladdernut has a smaller, flatter pod split into two parts. A wild bladdernut in eastern North American woods is almost always the American one.
Why they get mixed upBoth are shrubs in the same genus with three leaflets per leaf, white spring flowers, and papery, bladder-like pods.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Open woodland
- Thickets
- Roadsides
- Range
- Native to Japan, Korea, and northern and central China, from lowlands up to about 4,300 ft (1,300 m). In the US it's found only in cultivation.
- Preferred conditions
- In gardens it likes full sun to part shade and soil that stays evenly moist; it does not do well in dry ground. It's rated for USDA hardiness zones 4–8.
Growing it
- Care
- Easy and largely trouble-free, though its ornamental value is modest. It works in a shrub border or woodland garden and can be grown from seed or cuttings.
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