It forms fruit bodies in the shape of two roughly circular buff-colored lobes measuring up to 50 cm (20 in) in diameter that envelop the bamboo.

The authors were studying members of the family Xylariaceae that were housed in the Mycological Herbarium of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and discovered that five specimens labeled as E. goetzii, collected from Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yunnan Province) in 1958, did not match descriptions of the species published by Paul Christoph Hennings (1900), Curtis Gates Lloyd (1917), R.W.G.

The ostioles (minute openings through which spores are released), which are scattered about the surface of the fruit bodies, are somewhat nipple-like when young but later become sharper (punctate).

They have an apical apparatus (a region at the ascus tip that forms the spore-shooting mechanism) that stains blue in Melzer's reagent.

[1] In contrast to E. goetzii (the type species of Engleromyces), E. sinensis has smaller spores, and an apical apparatus that is T-shaped rather than cuboid.

[1] The Siamese jelly ball fungus, Gelatinomyces siamensis, produces fruit bodies that are superficially similar to those of E. sinensis.

However, the former are smaller, have a gelatinous texture, and are only found in Thailand, where they grow on bamboo culms and branches at elevations ranging from 390–840 m (1,280–2,760 ft).

[3] Engleromyces sinensis is used in China in traditional medicine for its antibiotic and antiinflammatory properties,[1] and is sold in market stalls in Yunnan.