Pandanales are highly diverse including large arboraceous plants of tropical rainforests and coastal areas, climbing vines and lianas, as well as very small achlorophyllous (mycoheterotrophic) and saprophytic herbaceous forest floor species.

[2] The Pandanales order is distinctive with its highly variable and hardly definable floral morphology,[2] especially the number of stamens and their structure as well as many other characteristics.

[citation needed] The components of the order sensu APG have been difficult to place consistently, and historically have been associated with a number of other groupings.

Inside the order, some doubt remains about the position of the entirely mycoheterotrophic family Triuridaceae, since it is the only one on which genetic analyses have not yet been applied.

The order Dioscoreales holds sister relationship with Pandanales by diverging from them around 121 million years ago in the mid-Cretaceous.

The species are members of various ecological groups, including tropical shrubs, lianas and trees, xerophytic plants, mycoheterotrophs, as well as different herbaceous representatives.