Cryptocarya leucophylla, commonly known as northern laurel,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae and is endemic to Queensland. It is a tree with elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, creamy green, unpleasantly perfumed flowers, and elliptic to more or less spherical, black drupes.
Cryptocarya leucophylla is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to, its stems buttressed. Its leaves are elliptic to egg-shaped, sometimes with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in panicles in leaf axils shorter or only slightly longer than the leaves. They are creamy green and unpleasantly perfumed. The perianth tube is long, wide. The outer anthers are long and wide, the inner anthers long and about wide. Flowering occurs from January to March, and the fruit is an elliptic to more or less spherical, black drupe, long and wide with yellowish cotyledons.[2] [3]
Cryptocarya leucophylla was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in 1985.[4] The specific epithet (leucophylla) means 'white leaved'.[5]
Cryptocarya leucophylla grows in mountain rainforest at altitudes between .
This Cryptocarya is listed as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.