''Cryptocarya hypospodia'', commonly known as northern laurel, white walnut, rib fruited pepperberry or north queensland purple laurel, is species of flowering plant in the

laurel Laurel may refer to: Plants * Lauraceae, the laurel family * Laurel (plant), including a list of trees and plants known as laurel People * Laurel (given name), people with the given name * Laurel (surname), people with the surname * Laurel (mus ...

family and is native to northern Australia and New Guinea. It is a tree with elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, pale brown and creamy-green flowers, and spherical black

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...

Description

''Cryptocarya hypospodia'' is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to , its stems usually buttressed and soft hairs on its twigs. Its leaves are elliptic to egg-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in

panicle In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a p ...

s longer than the leaves and are pale brown, creamy-green, and pleasantly perfumed. The

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower. It is a structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepal ...

tube is long, wide and hairy near the tip. The outer

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s are long and wide and the inner tepals are long and wide. The outer

anthers The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filamen ...

are long and wide, the inner anthers long and wide. Flowering occurs from November to May, and the fruit is a spherical black drupe long and wide with creamy

cotyledon A cotyledon ( ; ; "a cavity, small cup, any cup-shaped hollow", gen. (), ) is a "seed leaf" – a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant – and is formally defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or mor ...

Taxonomy

''Cryptocarya hypospodia'' was first formally described in 1866 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

in his ''

Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae ''Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae'' is a series of papers written by the Victorian Government botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in which he published many of his approximately 2000 descriptions of new taxa of Australian plants. Including the p ...

'' from specimens collected near

Rockingham Bay Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia. The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a small ...

Distribution and habitat

Northern laurel grows in rainforest and gallery forest from

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

and south to north-east and central eastern Queensland, on

Croker Island Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, northeast of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. It was the site of the Croker Island Mission between 1940 and 1968. Indigenous peoples At the ...

in the Northern Territory and in New Guinea.

Ecology

The fruit of ''C. hypospodia'' is eaten by

cassowaries Cassowaries (; Biak language, Biak: ''man suar'' ; ; Papuan_languages, Papuan: ''kasu weri'' ) are flightless birds of the genus ''Casuarius'', in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites, flightless birds without a keel (bird a ...

and fruit-eating birds, and is food for larval stages of butterflies.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15613041 Laurales of Australia Trees of Australia Flora of Queensland hypospodia Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller Plants described in 1866