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When the wind kicks up, a bee seeks shelter in the floral cluster of a bladdernut.

Large, triangular membranaceous pods hang thickly from the white-lined branches of the bladdernut.

On the rocky slopes the wild ginger shows its red-brown, long-eared urns, the white baneberry its short white plumes, the branchlets of the bladdernut are breaking into white clusters and columbine soon will “sprinkle on the rocks a scarlet rain” as it did in Bayard Taylor’s time, although the “scarlet rain,” like that of the painted cup in the lowlands, grows less and less each year.

The big three-valved balloons of the bladdernut can sail either in the air, on the water, or over the frozen snow.