Cryptocarya brassii

Cryptocarya brassii is a species of flowering plant in the laurel family and is native to far north Queensland and Papua New Guinea. Its leaves are elliptic to oblong or lance-shaped, the flowers cream-coloured and tube-shaped, and the fruit an elliptic black to bluish-black drupe.

Description

Cryptocarya brassii is a tree that typically grows to a height of, its stem sometimes buttressed. Its leaves are elliptic to oblong or lance-shaped long and wide on a petiole long. The leaves are pinnately veined and more or less glaucous on the lower surface. The flowers are cream-coloured and arranged in panicles about the same length as long as the leaves. The tepals are long, the outer anthers long and wide, the inner anthers long and about wide. Flowering occurs in September, and the fruit is an elliptic black or bluish-black drupe long and about wide.

Taxonomy

Cryptocarya brassii was first formally described in 1942 by Caroline Kathryn Allen in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum from specimens collected in the Middle Fly River by Leonard John Brass.

Distribution and habitat

This species of laurel grows in gallery forest at altitudes between from Bamaga to Coen on Cape York Peninsula and in New Guinea.