The lower surface, the hymenium, is covered in wrinkles and ridges rather than gills or pores, and is pale buff or yellowish to whitish.

This species was first described as Cantharellus floccosus in 1834 by American mycologist Lewis David de Schweinitz, who reported it growing in beech woods in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania.

[3] In 1839, Miles Joseph Berkeley named a specimen from Canada as Cantharellus canadensis based on a manuscript by Johann Friedrich Klotzsch, noting its affinity to C.

[4] A large specimen collected in Maine by Charles James Sprague was described as Cantharellus princeps in 1859 by Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis.

[11] The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek γομφος, gomphos, meaning "plug" or "large wedge-shaped nail".

[12] Alex H. Smith treated the members of Gomphus as two sections—Gomphus and Excavatus—within Cantharellus in his 1947 review of chanterelles in western North America, as he felt there were no consistent characteristics that distinguished the genera.

The shaggy chanterelle was placed in the latter section due to its scaly cap, lack of clamp connections and rusty-colored spores.

[14] The genus Gomphus, along with several others in the Gomphaceae, was reorganized in the 2010s after molecular analysis confirmed that the older morphology-based classification did not accurately represent phylogenetic relationships.

[23] Adult fruit bodies are initially cylindrical, maturing to trumpet- or vase-shaped and reaching up to 30 cm (12 in) in height and width.

[24] The spore-bearing undersurface is irregularly folded, forked or ridged rather than gilled and is pale buff or yellowish to whitish in color.

Mushrooms in subalpine and alpine areas are typically heavy-set with a short stipe, their growth slower in the cold climate.

Conversely, mushrooms at low altitudes, such as in the redwood forests, can grow and expand rapidly with large caps that have prominent scales.

[38] Despite its toxicity, T. floccosus is one of the ten wild mushrooms most widely consumed by ethnic tribes in Meghalaya, northeast India,[39] and is highly regarded by the Sherpa people in the vicinity of Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal.

[18] The fruit body of T. floccosus produces oxylipin (lipids generated by oxygenation of fatty acids) that are active against the fungal plant pathogens Colletotrichum fragariae, C. gloeosporioides, and C. acutatum.

[40] T. floccosus also contains the dicatecholspermidine derivative pistillarin, a compound that inhibits DNA damage by hydroxyl radicals generated by the Fenton reaction.