Species of Crepidotus all have small, convex to fan-shaped sessile caps and grow on wood or plant debris.

Elias Magnus Fries first circumscribed Crepidotus in 1821 as a tribe in the genus Agaricus,[9] although he later (1836–1838) revised his concept.

[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] In 1947, Rolf Singer wrote a monograph about the genus, and unlike prior treatments, used microscopic characters to help delineate infrageneric (i.e., below genus-level classification) relationships.

[21] Modern phylogenetic analysis using sequencing data from the 28S rRNA gene region shows that Crepidotus is monophyletic, and that Singer's original concept for the genus may be too narrowly defined.

[22] This research showed that a natural evolutionary lineage results if some Pleurotellus species and several taxa formerly aligned with Melanomphalia are included in the generic description.