Caryodaphnopsis is a genus of 16 species belonging to the flowering plant family Lauraceae, distributed in tropical areas in southern North America, northern South America, and East and Southeast Asia. They vary from 50-m-high trees to small trees or shrubs in lowland evergreen forest and rainforest. The genus is distributed across the Pacific, with a marked geographical disjunction between Southeast Asia (South China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and tropical America (Costa Rica to Brazil, crossing Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela).

Taxonomic history

Until 1985, the genus was only reported for tropical Asia, but van der Werff and Richter transferred two South American species of the genus Persea to Caryodaphnopsis.

Species

Species include: