However, since the first valid description was by Friedrich von Berchtold and Jan Svatopluk Presl (1820),[2] the botanical authority is given as Juss.

In the Cronquist system, Boraginaceae (including Cordiaceae, Ehretiaceae, and Heliotropiaceae) and Lennoaceae were placed in the order Lamiales, while the related Hydrophyllaceae was placed in Solanales.

In a phylogenetic study of DNA sequences of selected genes, Boraginales was resolved as sister to Lamiales sensu APG, but that result had only 65% maximum likelihood bootstrap support.

[10] (For a complete discussion of the history of the taxonomy of Boraginales, see BWG (2016)) Following the publication of APG IV, a collaborative group along similar lines to the APG, the Boraginales Working Group,[1] has published an alternative taxonomy based on the phylogenetic relationships within the Boraginaceae s.l..[6][11] This classification split the order into eleven families, including: Boraginaceae s.s. or s.str., Cordiaceae, Ehretiaceae, Heliotropiaceae, and Hydrophyllaceae.

[11][14] The achlorophyllous holoparasites Lennoa and Pholisma were once regarded as a family, Lennoaceae, but it is now known that they form a clade that is nested within Ehretiaceae.

[9] The inclusion of the genus Hoplestigma in Boraginales was occasionally doubted until it was strongly confirmed in a cladistic study in 2014.