Evergreen shrub or small tree to 8 m tall. Leaves shiny, leathery, elliptical, obovate or oblong, to 16 cm long, margins slightly revolute, particularly on older leaves, entire or sparsely small-toothed, stalks and young branchlets green. Flowers in erect axillary or terminal cylindrical racemes about 15 cm long, as long as or slightly longer than the subtending leaf, each about 0.8 cm wide, white or cream. Fruit purple-black, conical, about 1 cm wide.

Although many selections of P. laurocerasus are available in Europe and N America, they appear not to be available in Australia.

E Europe, SW Asia. Can be weedy and has naturalised in SE Australia.

ACT: Duntroon (Officers' Mess). VIC: Beechworth (cemetery); Daylesford (Bot. Gds).

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Rosaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.