[1] It forms slender, cylindrical, yellow fruiting bodies that grow on the ground in agriculturally unimproved grassland or in woodland litter.

[2] In 1978, American mycologist Ron Petersen revised the clavarioid genera and placed the species in Ramariopsis,[3] a move followed by some subsequent researchers.

Clavulinopsis fusiformis is similarly coloured, but fruit bodies are normally larger and appear in dense, fasciculate (closely bunched) clusters.

In America and Asia it grows in woodland, but in Europe it generally occurs in agriculturally unimproved, short-sward grassland (pastures and lawns).

Such waxcap grasslands are a declining and threatened habitat, but Clavulinopsis helvola is one of the commoner species and is not currently considered of conservation concern.