It was growing from seed in Empress Josephine's arboretum at Malmaison by 1804, when Étienne Pierre Ventenat catalogued it in his Jardin de la Malmaison.
It grows under such trees as mountain blue gum (Eucalyptus deanei), turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera) and rough-barked apple (Angophora floribunda), and alongside watergum (Tristaniopsis laurina) and river lomatia (Lomatia myricoides).
Subspecies cunninghamii is associated with the trees scribbly gum species Eucalyptus rossii and E. sclerophylla, rough-barked apple (Angophora floribunda), Callitris species, and mallees such as Eucalyptus multicaulis and narrow-leaved mountain mallee (E. apiculata).