Cryptocarya smaragdina
Cryptocarya smaragdina, commonly known as Dina's laurel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae and is endemic to north Queensland. It is a shrub with lance-shaped leaves, creamy green, unpleasantly perfumed flowers, and spherical black drupes.
Description
Cryptocarya smaragdina is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to and a dbh of up to, its stems buttressed. Its leaves are lance-shaped, long and wide, on a petiole long. The flowers are creamy green and unpleasantly perfumed, and arranged in panicles shorter than the leaves. The perianth tube is long and wide, the outer tepals long and wide, the inner tepals long and wide. The outer anthers are long and wide, the inner anthers long and wide. Flowering occurs from September to November, and the fruit is a spherical black drupe, long and wide with creamy white cotyledons.
Taxonomy
Cryptocarya smaragdina was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in State Forest Reserve 607 in 1982. The specific epithet means 'emerald green'.
This species of Cryptocarya is restricted to the Atherton Tableland, between the Tinaroo Hills, the Lamb Range and Koombooloomba, where grows in rainforest, at altitudes between in north-east Queensland.
This species of Cryptocarya is listed as "of least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.