Several species of Canellaceae are important in herbal medicine or as a substitute for cinnamon, which is obtained from genus Cinnamomum in family Lauraceae.

[8] Other notable traits include the conspicuous lenticels, the aromatic bark, the peppery taste of the leaves, the three (rarely two) fleshy sepals, and the berry with reniform seeds.

Monoterpenes are common, as are drimane-type sesquiterpenes, including cinnafragrins, cinnamodial, and capsicodendrin.

[citation needed] The saro, or green sandalwood, (also known locally as mandravasarotra), Cinnamosma fragrans, is native to Madagascar and is exported from there to India to be burned in ceremonies.

[citation needed] Most species of Canellaceae produce bark that is similar in odor and flavor to cinnamon, but they are closer related to the family Piperaceae including black pepper (Piper nigrum) than to true cinnamons, which are in the family Lauraceae (still within Magnoliids).

The white cinnamon, Canella winterana, a native of Florida and the Antilles, is used as a condiment, with tonic properties.

[citation needed] Fossil leaves of Canella are known from the Pliocene of Bahia (Brazil).

[citation needed] Depending on the classification system and the characters considered, Canellaceae has been placed close to Annonaceae, Myristicaceae or Winteraceae.

[5] In his last book, Armen Takhtajan defined the order Canellales as consisting of Canellaceae and Winteraceae.

[8] In 1737, in his Hortus Cliffortianus, Linnaeus combined Canella with Drimys, a genus now in Winteraceae, and Cinnamomum, now in Lauraceae, to form a taxon which he called Winterania.

[18] The generic name is derived from canela, the Spanish word for cinnamon, but the Spanish word is derived from the Latin canna, meaning "a reed", or from the related Greek kanna, which refers to a piece of rolled bark.

[19] The genus Canella was not adopted by Linnaeus, who resurrected Winterania in the second edition of Species Plantarum in 1762.

In 1784, Johan Andreas Murray divided Winterania into two monospecific genera, the constituent species of which were Canella alba and Wintera aromatica.

The family Canellaceae was established by Carl von Martius in 1832 and was defined as consisting of only the genus Canella.

[8] Molecular phylogenetic studies of DNA sequences have shown Cinnamodendron, as traditionally circumscribed, is polyphyletic, consisting of two distinct groups.

The other group of Cinnamodendron species is most closely related to Pleodendron and is restricted to the Greater Antilles.