''Cryptocarya caesia'' is a tree in the family

Lauraceae Lauraceae, or the laurels, is a plant family that includes the true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide (Christenhusz & Byng 2016 ). They are dicotyledons, and occur ma ...

reported from

Java Island Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's most ...

in Indonesia and the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...

in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...

. This species was originally described by Blume from Java in 1851. Later, in 1884, George King located this tree in Port Blair in the Andaman Islands and collected some herbarium specimens. These specimens mostly agree with Blume's collections from Java except for having a glabrous midrib underneath. King annotated the herbarium sheet with "the Andaman specimen may be ''Cryptocaria caesia'' Blume or a new species" because he could not complete the identification of the Andaman specimen due to lack of fruits in Blume's specimen. Later, C. E. Parkinson reported this species from Long Island of the North Andaman group in 1916. There were no further records of this species from the Andaman Islands until 1990. Mathew in 1990 located this species from the Mount Harriet National Park (South Andaman). It is ~20-meter-tall evergreen tree found in the evergreen forests of Mount Harriet near the rock Kala Pather at an approximate altitude of 400 meters. Young parts of the branchlets are rusty pubescent. Inflorescences are rusty tomentose. Fruits are globose and about 6 millimeters in diameter.

References

caesia ''Caesia'' is a genus of herbs in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae,Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards)"Hemerocallidoideae" ''Angiosperm Phylogeny Website''. Retrieved 2016-06-10. native to Australia, New Guinea, Madagascar and Sou ...

Flora of the Andaman Islands Trees of Java Plants described in 1851 {{Laurales-stub