Cryptocarya vulgaris commonly known as northern laurel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae and is endemic to north Queensland. It is a tree with elliptic to oblong or lance-shaped leaves, creamy yellow and pale green, perfumed flowers, and spherical black drupes.
Cryptocarya vulgaris is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to, its stems sometimes buttressed. Its leaves are elliptic to oblong or lance-shaped, long and wide, on a petiole long. The flowers are creamy yellow, pale green and perfumed, and arranged in panicles longer than the leaves. The perianth tube is long and wide, the outer tepals long and wide, the inner tepals long and wide. The outer anthers are long and wide, the inner anthers long and wide. Flowering occurs from November to April, and the fruit is usually a spherical black drupe, long and wide with creamy yellow cotyledons.
Cryptocarya vulgaris was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in the Little Pine Logging Area in 1979. The specific epithet (vulgaris) means 'common' or 'ordinary'.
This species of Cryptocarya grows in rainforest at altitudes from sea level to from the Iron Range on Cape York Peninsula to Yeppoon in central eastern Queensland.
This species of Cryptocarya is listed as "of least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.