A deciduous shrub up to 12 or 15 ft high. Leaves pinnate, composed of usually five leaflets, occasionally three, rarely seven; they are 2 to 4 in. long, ovate or ovate-oblong, toothed, dull green above, pale and dull beneath, with down near the base of the midrib. Flowers in terminal drooping panicles 2 to 4 in. long, white, each flower about 1⁄2 in. long, the sepals as well as petals erect. Fruit a two-celled, bladder-like capsule 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, about the same wide, each cell containing one or more seeds about the size of a large pea, brownish yellow.
Native of Europe from S.E. France and Italy eastward to the western Ukraine and the Balkans; and of parts of S.W. Asia (Anatolia, Transcaucasia and bordering parts of Syria). It is the best known of the bladder-nuts, and although not a native of Britain is now naturalised in the hedgerows and copses of some parts. In 1596, according to Gerard, it grew in the Strand ‘by the Lord Treasurer’s House.’ It is not so handsome and notable a shrub as S. colchica, from which, as well as from ‘Coulombieri’, it is distinguished by the dull under-surface of the leaves and erect sepals, and from S. colchica in particular by the much smaller fruits, containing seeds twice as large. It merits a place in the garden for its curious and interesting fruits as well as its flowers and foliage.