Generally brown to red or pink in color, the mineral gets its name from the Greek words meaning "pale purple-red".

[4] The mineral forms in a low pressure, hydrothermal environment or in a contact zone in the veins and skarns of a stratiform Zn-Mn ore body.

[1] It has been found in association with barite, barysilite, calcite, copper, franklinite, garnet, glaucochroite, hausmannite, jerrygibbsite, manganosite, pyrochroite, rhodochrosite, sonolite, spessartine, sussexite, tephroite, vesuvianite, willemite, and zincite.

First thought to be clinohedrite deeply colored by manganese, it was identified as a new mineral in 1899 by Warren and Samuel Lewis Penfield.

[6] The mineral was also discovered around this time from the Buckwheat Pit in New Jersey;[1] however, it was not identified as leucophoenicite until 1906 as it had been overlooked or mistaken for some other substance.