Bladdernut

One of the few woody plants that can bloom well in deciduous shade.

This species is the most ornamental of the bladdernuts...Read More, because it's the most floriferous, and because the flowers emerge before the leaves. The flowers are sweetly fragrant. Flower color ranges from white to pink.

At the Arnold Arboretum in Boston Z6a, it blooms in early May, when it has a lot of competition for attention in the garden. Perhaps that is why this large shrub/small tree is so rarely offered or planted. The great plant explorer E. H. Wilson considered it among the best small flowering trees he brought into cultivation.

Children enjoy popping the curious bladderlike seed capsules that follow the flowers in summer.

The habit is upright and densely suckering, with many stems emerging tightly together.

Dirr says that this is hardy in Z5-6 in eastern N. America. It suffers in the heat of the eastern US south of Z6.