Uniform hydrangea-like multi-scale carbon hollow submicron spheres (HCSSg) are fabricated by a simple hydrothermal method using glucose as carbon source and fibrous silicon dioxides spheres as shape guide. Structure characterization suggests that petal-like partially graphitized carbon nanosheets with the thickness of about 10 nm arranged in three dimensions (3D) to form the hydrangea-like hollow spheres (size ranging from 250 to 500 nm) with mesoporous channels, which can be conducive to be a high specific surface area (934 m(2) g(-1)) and bulk density (0.87 cm g(-3)), hierarchical pores structure with good conductivity. As a result, the HCSSg has been demonstrated to be a supercapacitor electrode material with high gravimetric (386 F g(-1) at 0.2 A g(-1)) and outstanding volumetric (335 F cm(-3)) capacitance, good rate capability and cycling stability with 94% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles in aqueous electrolytes, thus suggesting its application potential. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.