Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are gelatinous, black, and button-shaped at first, later coalescing and drying to form tar-like patches.

The species was originally found growing on pine in Germany and was described in 1805 by the German mycologists Johannes Baptista von Albertini and Lewis David de Schweinitz.

The upper, spore-bearing surface is normally smooth, becoming slightly furrowed, occasionally with a few scattered pegs or warts.

[1][2] Fruit bodies of Exidia glandulosa and E. nigricans are similarly coloured, but occur on broad leaved trees.

[1] It is widely distributed throughout continental Europe from Scandinavia to Turkey, but is absent from the British Isles.