A laminar family is a collection of subsets of a set such that, for any two intersecting sets, one is contained in the other. For a capacity function on , let be . Then is the collection of independent sets of a (laminar) matroid on . We present a method of compacting laminar presentations, characterize the class of laminar matroids by their excluded minors, present a way to construct all laminar matroids using basic operations, and compare the class of laminar matroids to other well-known classes of matroids.