Cryptocarya triplinervis, commonly known as blackbutt, three-veined cryptocarya, brown laurel or three-veined laurel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a tree with egg-shaped to elliptic or lance-shaped leaves, cream-coloured to pale green flowers, and elliptic black drupes.

Description

Cryptocarya triplinervis is a small to medium-sized tree that typically grows to a height of up to 20 m, with a dbh of up to 60 cm, its trunk sometimes buttressed. The bark is grey brown, mostly smooth with lines of vertical bumps running up the trunk. Its leaves are arranged alternately, egg-shaped to elliptic or lance-shaped, 45–135 mm long, 15–5 mm wide on a petiole 3–13 mm long with a prominent tip. The leaves are dark glossy green above, paler and hairy below, three veined with an easily seen mid vein, which is depressed on the upper side and raised on the lower side of the leaf. The flowers are arranged in panicles as long as, or longer than the leaves. The flowers are cream-coloured to pale green and tube-shaped, the tube 1.2–2.87 mm long and 0.9–1.2 mm wide. The tepals are 1.4–2.2 mm long and 0.7–1.8 mm wide, the outer anthers are 0.5–0.8 mm long and 0.4–0.7 mm wide, the inner anthers 0.5–0.8 mm long and 0.3–0.5 mm wide. Flowering occurs from September to December and the fruit is a black drupe, 8–14 mm long and 6.5–12 mm wide and that ripens from February to May.

Taxonomy

Cryptocarya triplinervis was first formally described in 1810 by botanist Robert Brown in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. The specific epithet (triplinervis) refers to the three prominent veins on the leaves. In 1989, Bernard Hyland described two varieties of C. triplinervis in Australian Systematic Botany, and the names, and that of the autonym are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:

Distribution and habitat

The variety pubens occurs in warmer and drier rainforest, sometimes along creeks and rivers, from the Atherton Tableland in north Queensland to Coffs Harbour in northern New South Wales, at altitudes from sea level to 750 m. Var. riparia is endemic to Queensland, where it is found between the Iron Range and Cardwell, occurring in gallery forests along creeks and rivers, from sea level to 400 m. and var. triplinervis is found between Townsville in central Queensland and Smoky Cape in northern New South Wales, and on Lord Howe Island, growing in rainforest, southern beech forest, and littoral rainforest, from sea level to an altitude of 100 m.

Ecology

Cryptocarya triplinervis var. riparia is food plant for the larval stages of Graphium sarpedon, the blue triangle butterfly.

Use in horticulture

Like most Australian species of Cryptocarya, removal of the aril is advised to assist seed germination. Around 80% of the seeds will germinate, taking between three and six months. Plants generally take around 5 years to fruit in Brisbane.

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