[1][2] It was first described in 1799 by the British mycologist James Sowerby who classified it as Agaricus meleagris and illustrated it in volume II of 'Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms'.

[4] In 1821, the species was reclassified as Gymnopus meleagris by the British mycologist Samuel Frederick Gray and the common name Turkey-fowl naked-foot was suggested.

[6] In 1891, it was included in the German botanist Otto Kunze's exhaustive list of reclassifications as Mastocephalus biornatus,[7] however Kunze's Mastocephalus genus, along with most of 'Revisio generum plantarum' was not widely accepted by the scientific community of the age and so this classification was not accepted and nothing remains in this genus.

The exterior of C. xylophilum was noted as differing in the pale purple floccose (woolly) coating and the white-floury interior.

[11] This was reclassified as Coccobotrys xylophilus in 1900 by the French mycologists Jean Louis Émile Boudier and Narcisse Théophile Patouillard who described the species as having ochre-yellow mycelium producing numerous round, 1-2mm wide structures with a hard outer surface of the same colour as the mycelium.

[12] In 1900, Charles van Bambeke classified Coccobotrys xylophilus as the mycelium and asexual morph of Lepiota meleagris.

[13] However the description of Coccobotrys xylophilus given by Boudier and Patouillard appears to significantly differ from that of Fries' Cenococcum xylophilum in colouration.

Else Vellinga suggested that the material examined by Boudier and Patouillard and then later Bambeke was not the same as the original collection of Cenococcum xylophilum and so this reclassification had to be rejected.

[15] Cap: 2–4.5 cm wide, starting hemispherical before expanding to campanulate (bell shaped) then plano-convex with a broad umbo.

Gills: Free, crowded and white but discolouring like the rest of the mushroom so may be yellowish or brownish with age.

[15] In the early taxonomy of this species the observations are from greenhouses and amongst bark beds in hothouses so it may be more common in these warm environments.