Basidiocarps (fruit bodies), when visible, are typically smooth, ceraceous (waxy) to subgelatinous, frequently lilaceous to violet-grey, and formed on the underside of fallen branches and logs.

Tulasnella was originally circumscribed by German mycologist Joseph Schröter in 1888, partly based on an earlier illustration by Charles Tulasne, after whom the new genus was named.

[3][4] Between 1909 and 1928, French mycologists Hubert Bourdot and Amédée Galzin described more than a dozen new species of Tulasnella from collections made in France.

[14] Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has confirmed Tulasnella as a distinct genus, but has placed it within the Cantharellales rather than in its own order the Tulasnellales.

Molecular research has also shown that the anamorphic, pustular, wood-inhabiting genus Hormomyces is a synonym of Tulasnella, not Tremella as previously thought.

[23][24] Molecular research has shown that thalloid liverworts in the family Aneuraceae associate frequently and perhaps exclusively with species of Tulasnella, ether in a mycorrhizal or parasitic relationship.