Cryptocarya glaucescens

Cryptocarya glaucescens, commonly known as jackwood, silver sycamore, native laurel, brown beech, bolly laurel or brown laurel, is a species of flowering plant in the laurel family and is endemic to eastern Australia. Its leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, the flowers cream-coloured or pale green, perfumed and tube-shaped, and the fruit a black drupe.

Description

Cryptocarya glaucescens is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to with a trunk dbh of, its stem sometimes buttressed. The bark is dark brown or reddish brown and often scaly. Its leaves are arranged alternately, lance-shaped to elliptic, long, wide on a petiole long and glaucous on the lower surface.
The flowers are cream-coloured to green, perfumed, arranged in panicles in leaf axils and usually shorter than the leaves. The perianth tube is long and wide, the outer tepals long and wide, the inner tepals long and wide. The ovary is long and wide and glabrous with a glabrous style. Flowering occurs in October and November, and the fruit is a laterally compress black drupe, long and wide.

Taxonomy

Cryptocarya glaucescens was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown (botanist, [born 1773)|Robert Brown] in his book, Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. The specific epithet means 'becoming bluish-grey or -green'.

Distribution and habitat

Jackwood grows in rainforest, typically in poorer soils, from sea level to an altitude of, between Mount Dromedary in southern New South Wales to Eungella [National Park], in central Queensland.

Ecology

The fruit of C. glaucescens is eaten by rainforest birds including the topknot pigeon. Fruit are ripe from March to June.