Species
+

Staphylea trifolia L.

American bladdernut, American bladdernut, American bladdernut (EN), bladdernut

Climate known 61 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Staphylea trifolia, the American bladdernut, is native to eastern North America, from southern Ontario and southwestern Quebec west to Nebraska and Arkansas, and south to Florida. It is sometimes used as an ornamental plant.

Text from Wikipedia, “Staphylea trifolia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Staphylea

Staphylea, called bladdernuts, is a small genus of 10 or 11 species of flowering plants in the family Staphyleaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The highest species diversity is in China, where four species occur.

Text from Wikipedia, “Staphylea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Staphyleaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska +19
Wild records
1377 in range· 288 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Jul, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1125mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 111 mm (CHELSA)
Light
11–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and November in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1125 mm a year, wettest June at 111 mm, driest February at 72 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -14.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Staphylea brighamii J.F.Macbr.; Staphylea trifolia f. pyriformis Dore; Staphylea trifolia f. trifolia; Staphylea trifolia var. pauciflora (Zabel) Rehder; Staphylea trifolia var. typica C.K.Schneid. and 3 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and November in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (803 mm of 1125 mm) takes 8 months, March to September and November. Mean temperature moves 24.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to March and May.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1125 mm a year, wettest June at 111 mm, driest February at 72 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1125 mm a year at the habitat, 803 mm of it March to September and November. Wettest month June at 111 mm, driest February at 72 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 928 mm to 1346 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 9, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -14.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -14.8 °C, the absolute minimum -27.6 °C, about 114 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -4.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells -10.8 °C to 0.0 °C), warmest day 28.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -14.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 59% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 3 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Jul; mean night from -5 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1125 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 890 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -27.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost34.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)-27.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 11–40RH 56–59 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 890 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C3 / -2–95 / 0–1211 / 6–1617 / 13–2122 / 19–2527 / 24–3029 / 26–3128 / 26–3124 / 22–2718 / 15–2111 / 7–165 / 0–10
Night °C-5 / -11–0-4 / -9–20 / -4–66 / 3–1011 / 9–1517 / 15–2019 / 18–2219 / 17–2115 / 13–189 / 7–123 / 0–7-2 / -7–2
Rain mm77 / 34–10072 / 38–10692 / 55–11897 / 82–118109 / 92–141111 / 94–125111 / 95–12999 / 83–11995 / 82–11688 / 68–11389 / 65–11585 / 47–119
DLI14 / 12–1619 / 17–2126 / 25–2833 / 32–3537 / 36–3940 / 39–4139 / 38–4134 / 33–3728 / 26–3021 / 18–2414 / 11–1711 / 9–14
RH %58 / 56–6357 / 55–6156 / 55–5856 / 54–5757 / 56–5958 / 57–6059 / 57–6059 / 58–6159 / 57–6158 / 56–6058 / 57–6059 / 57–63

Each figure is the median across the 890 grid cells holding the 1256 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1007:1998 (39.625, -80.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -27.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -14.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 890 distinct grid cells holding the 1256 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1007:1998 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 39.50_-80.000, lapse-corrected -101 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 378 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIllinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker40.441, -75.269 · in the densest population, 749 records (54% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1377 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 288 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 47 km away. 460 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 121 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1377 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Staphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifoliaStaphylea trifolia

Photographs: (c) Tom Norton, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Loopy30, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Staphylea trifolia, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

FACTORS LIMITING FRUIT AND SEED PRODUCTION OF A TEMPERATE SHRUB, STAPHYLEA TRIFOLIA L. (STAPHYLEACEAE)
Nancy C. Garwood, Carol C. Horvitz (1985) · American Journal of Botany
Factors Limiting Fruit and Seed Production of a Temperate Shrub, Staphylea trifolia L. (Staphyleaceae)
Nancy C. Garwood, Carol C. Horvitz (1985) · American Journal of Botany
Remarkable asymmetries in trifoliolate leaves with particular reference to Medicago
Ernest Small, L. P. Lefkovitch, Brenda Brookes (1981) · Canadian Journal of Botany
Sawflies (Hymenoptera, Symphyta) of three Mid-Atlantic Parks in the George Washington Memorial Parkway, U.S.A.
Edward M. Barrows, David Roy Smith (2014) · Journal of Hymenoptera Research
Vascular Flora of Yalobusha County, Mississippi
Keri K. Denley, Charles T. Bryson, Robert A. Stewart (2002) · Castanea
The complete chloroplast genome of Turpinia arguta (Staphyleaceae)
Lan Cao, Zejing Mu, Xianping Yang, Zhongqing Guo (2020) · Mitochondrial DNA Part B
Staphylea trifolia L.
John E. Ebinger (1973) · Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy
Occurence of the Cotton Mouse, Peromyscus gossypinus, in Northcentral Oklahoma
T. Payne (1992) · Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Staphylea 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 83 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.