Called pinkgills in English, basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are typically agaricoid (gilled mushrooms), though a minority are gasteroid.

Recent molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has shown that Entoloma sensu lato is monophyletic (a natural grouping), whereas Entoloma sensu stricto, as previously defined, is paraphyletic (an artificial grouping).

Thus Nolanea, for example, has been redefined (by excluding some species and adding others) as a monophyletic grouping within Entoloma sensu lato and treated either as a subgenus[11] or as a separate genus.

[14] Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are typically agaricoid (mushroom-shaped with gills), occasionally secotioid or gasteroid (truffle-like).

Agaricoid species are variously large and thick-set to small and delicate, but all have lamellae (gills) that are attached to the stem (not free) and become pinkish with age from the pink basidiospores.

[16] A similar association of Entoloma sepium with fruit trees (Rosaceae) has, however, been shown to be root parasitism,[17] though other studies have suggested some kind of mycorrhizal partnership may exist.

[9] Entoloma species are found in a wide variety of habitats, including grasslands and dunes, temperate and tropical forests and woodlands, peat-bogs and moors.

[20] They include Entoloma chilense in Chile, E. eugenei in Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East, and E. ravinense in Australia.

[20] Several Entoloma species are known to be poisonous, causing gastroenteric symptoms (vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain).

[21] The English naturalist Charles David Badham mistakenly ate Entoloma sinuatum and was "so continually and fearfully purged, and suffered so much from headache and swimming of the brain, that I really thought that every moment would be my last.