Wood is commercially harvested from rainforest species of this family, and is used both in construction and in fine cabinet making.

The Angiosperm Phylogeny Website considers them to be a family of their own (as the Atherospermataceae), and together with the Gomortegaceae and Siparunaceae form a distinct branch of the Laurales.

A clade made up of Doryphora and Daphnandra, from the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales, is considered sister to the rest of the family.

[3] Daphnandra Doryphora Dryadodaphne Atherosperma Nemuaron Laureliopsis Laurelia The atherosperm fossil record, which goes back to the Upper Cretaceous, includes pollen, wood, and leaf fossils from Europe, Africa, South America, Antarctica, New Zealand, and Tasmania.

Fossil pollen of Laurelia has been attributed to the middle Oligocene of New Zealand, as well as the Eocene-Oligocene and Early Miocene of Argentina and Seymour Island.