Cryptocarya claudiana, commonly known as Claudie laurel,[1] is a tree in the laurel family and is endemic to Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. Its leaves are oblong to elliptic, the flowers creamy-green, perfumed and tube-shaped, and the fruit an elliptic or spherical black drupe.
Cryptocarya claudiana is a tree that typically grows to a height of, its stems not buttressed. Its leaves are oblong to elliptic, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in panicles that are shorter than the leaves and are perfumed, the perianth long an wide and hairy inside. The tepals are long and wide, the outer anthers about long and wide, the inner anthers long and about wide. Flowering occurs in January, and the fruit is an elliptic or spherical black drupe long and wide.[2]
Cryptocarya claudiana was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected near the Claudie River.[3]
This species of Cryptocarya grows in rainforest on soils derived from granite and metamorphic rocks at altitudes up to between the Claudie River and Rocky River, east of Coen on Cape York Peninsula.