It is a hydnoid species, producing spores on the surface of vertical spines or tooth-like projections that hang from the undersurface of the fruit bodies.

Hydnellum peckii is a mycorrhizal species, and forms mutually beneficial relationships with a variety of coniferous trees, growing on the ground singly, scattered, or in fused masses.

Young, moist fruit bodies can "bleed" bright red guttation droplets that contain a pigment known to have anticoagulant properties similar to heparin.

[1] The fungus is classified in the stirps (species thought to be descendants of a common ancestor) Diabolum of the genus Hydnellum, a grouping of similar species with the following shared characteristics: flesh that is marked with concentric lines that form alternating pale and darker zones (zonate); an extremely peppery taste; a sweetish odor; spores that are ellipsoid, and not amyloid (that is, not absorbing iodine when stained with Melzer's reagent), acyanophilous (not staining with the reagent Cotton Blue), and covered with tubercules; the presence of clamp connections in the hyphae.

[10] As in all mushroom-producing fungi, the fruit bodies (sporocarps) are the reproductive structures that are produced from fungal mycelium when the appropriate environmental conditions of temperature, humidity and nutrient availability are met.

[5] Fresh fruit bodies exude a striking, thick red fluid when they are moist,[2] present even in young specimens, which are lumplike in appearance.

In maturity, the surface is fibrous and tough, scaly and jagged, grayish brown in the upper part of the cap, and somewhat woody.

[14] The odor of the fruit body has been described as "mild to disagreeable",[6] or, as Banker suggested in his original description, similar to hickory nuts.

[7] Fruit bodies tend to grow singly, rather than in fused clusters, and, unlike H. peckii, they do not have bulbous stems.

[17] Molecular analysis based on the sequences of the internal transcribed spacer DNA of several Hydnellum species placed H. peckii as most closely related to H. ferrugineum and H. spongiosipes.

The subterranean hyphae of the fungus grow a sheath of tissue around the rootlets of a broad range of tree species, in an intimate association that is especially beneficial to the host (termed ectomycorrhizal), as the fungus produces enzymes that mineralize organic compounds and facilitate the transfer of nutrients to the tree.

They are characterized by a plectenchymatous mantle—a layer of tissue made of hyphae tightly arranged in a parallel orientation, or palisade, and which rarely branch or overlap each other.

The most striking characteristic of the ectomycorrhizae as a whole is the way the black outer layers of older sections are shed, giving a "carbonized appearance".

[23] Molecular techniques have been developed to help with conservation efforts of stipitate hydnoid fungi, including H. peckii.

[25] The fruit bodies of Hydnellum peckii are found growing solitary, scattered, or clustered together on the ground under conifers, often among mosses and pine needle litter.

H. peckii is a "late-stage" fungus that, in boreal forests dominated by jack pine, typically begins associating with more mature hosts once the canopy has closed.

[38] Atromentin also possesses antibacterial activity, inhibiting the enzyme enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (essential for the biosynthesis of fatty acids) in the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae.