A typical member of the clavarioid or club fungi, Clavaria zollingeri is saprobic, and so derives nutrients by breaking down organic matter.

[3] It was named after Swiss botanist Heinrich Zollinger, who researched the genus Clavaria,[4] and collected the type specimen in Java, Indonesia.

[3] American Charles Horton Peck published a species collected from Stow, Massachusetts as Clavaria lavendula in 1910,[5] but this is a synonym.

[8] A large-scale molecular analysis of the phylogenetic distributions and limits of clavarioid fungi in the family Clavariaceae was published by Bryn Dentiger and David McLaughlin in 2006.

Based on their analysis of ribosomal DNA sequences, C. zollingeri shared the greatest genetic similarity with Clavulinopsis laeticolor.

[14] The fruit bodies of Clavaria zollingeri grow either solitarily, in groups, or in clusters on the ground in grassy spots, usually near hardwood trees,[4] or with mosses.

[10] Clavaria zollingeri contains lectins, a class of proteins that bind specific carbohydrates on the surface of cells, causing them to clump together.

A Korean study demonstrated that extracts of the fungus caused lymphoagglutination, a specific form of agglutination that involves white blood cells.