Austrobaileyales is an order of flowering plants, consisting of about
100 species of woody plants growing as trees, shrubs and lianas.
Perhaps the most familiar species is Illicium verum, from which comes
the spice star anise. The order belongs to the group of basal
angiosperms, the ANA grade, which diverged earlier from the remaining
flowering plants, and, as such, it is the extant group after the
Amborellales and Nymphaeales, that is sister to all remaining extant
angiosperms outside the ANA grade. The order includes just
three families of flowering plants, the Austrobaileyaceae, a monotypic
family containing the sole genus, Austrobaileya scandens, a woody
liana, the Schisandraceae, a family of trees, shrubs, or lianas
containing essential oils, and the Trimeniaceae, essential oil-bearing
trees and lianas.
In different classifications
Until the early 21st century, the order was only rarely recognised by
systems of classification (an exception is the Reveal system).
The APG system, of 1998, did not recognize such an order. The APG II
system, of 2003, does accept this order and places it among the basal
angiosperms, that is: it does not belong to any further clade. APG II
uses this circumscription:
family Austrobaileyaceae, one species of woody vines from Australia
Schisandraceae [+ family Illiciaceae], several dozen species of
woody plants, found in tropical to temperate regions of East and
Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.
family Trimeniaceae, half-a-dozen species, of woody plants found in
subtropical to tropical Southeast Asia, eastern
Australia and the
Note: "+ ..." = optional seggregrate family, that may be split off
from the preceding family. The Cronquist system, of 1981, also placed
the plants in families
Schisandraceae together, but as
separate families, united at the rank of order, in the order
The phylogeny of the flowering plants, as of APG III (2009).