Cryptocarya murrayi commonly known as Murray's laurel,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae and is endemic to north Queensland. It is a tree with elliptic to oval to oblong leaves, cream-coloured, unpleasantly perfumed flowers, and elliptic to spherical black drupes.
Cryptocarya murrayi is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to, its stems buttressed and twigs hairy. Its leaves are elliptic to oval to oblong long, wide and glaucous on the lower surface, on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in panicles in leaf axils and are longer than the leaves. They are cream-coloured and unpleasantly perfumed. The perianth tube is long, wide. The outer anthers are long and wide, the inner anthers long and wide. Flowering occurs from December to July, and the fruit is an elliptical to spherical black drupe, long and wide with creamy cotyledons.[2]
Cryptocarya murrayi was first formally described in 1866 by Ferdinand von Mueller in his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected near Rockingham Bay by John Dallachy.[3] [4]
This species of Cryptocarya grows in rainforest from sea level to an altitude of between Cooktown in north-east Queensland and Mackey in central-eastern Queensland.
Cryptocarya murrayi is listed as of "least concern" by the Queensland Government Department of Education and Science.[5]