The flowers are very small, with five sepals and stamens and a single stigma, borne on terminal or axillary racemes or panicles.

[4] Recent genetic evidence from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has shown that Griselinia is correctly placed in the Apiales.

The young tree often colonizes amongst other epiphytes like Collospermum and Astelia high in the forest canopy, before growing aerial roots down the trunk of its host.

Upon contact with the ground the roots can become large – up to 25 cm (10 in) thick, and are easily identified for their heavy lengthwise corrugations.

G. lucida seldom becomes a freestanding tree if having begun life epiphytically, and can often be seen to have collapsed where the host has died.