Staphylea colchica

The Caucasian bladdernut is in the bladdernut or Staphyleaceae family and is native to western Georgia (on the southern border of Russia). It is a tall, suckering deciduous shrub growing to a height of about 3 m.

• Leaves are opposite and pinnate, with 3–5 ovate-oblong, hairless, green leaflets each to 9 cm long, with fine serrated margins and glabrous glossy undersides.
• Flowers are fragrant, greenish-white, about 1.3 cm across, with 5 sepals and petals of similar size, in drooping terminal panicles 10–13 cm long, with 5–15 flowers on each panicle; flowering is in May-June.
• Fruit is an inflated papery two- or three-lobed capsule to 8 cm wide, “bladder-like” in appearance, containing a few small nut-like rounded seeds.