Their foliage is damaged by oxidation in direct sunlight, so it tends to grow beneath the rainforest canopy, in low-sunlight and very humid conditions.

[11] Like many other flowering plants growing in the understory of tropical rainforest, it does not have palisade mesophyll tissue or low leaf photosynthetic rates.

[citation needed] Austrobaileya scandens is a rare species found only (endemic) in the Wet Tropics rainforests of Queensland.

It is evolved for fitness in the wet tropical rainforest’s conditions of dampness, humidity, high-light canopy and low-light understory.

[3][12][13] The Cronquist system, of 1981, assigned the family to the order Magnoliales, in subclass Magnoliidae, in class Magnoliopsida [=dicotyledons] of division Magnoliophyta [=angiosperms].

The Engler system, in its update of 1964, assigned it to the order Magnoliales, which was placed in subclass Archychlamydeae in class Dicotyledoneae and in subdivision Angiospermae.