Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) superficially resemble normal agarics (gilled mushrooms) but emerge from parasitized fruit bodies of deformed host agarics.

Dissoderma was created in 1948 as a subgenus of Cystoderma and raised to generic rank in 1973.

[2] Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has however confirmed Dissoderma as a genus distinct from Squamanita.

A number of species previously referred to Squamanita have accordingly been transferred to Dissoderma.

The lower parts of the stipes are host tissue and as such are often distinct and differently coloured.