[6] This species was originally described in 1801 as Agaricus setosus by James Sowerby in his historic work "Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms".

The French mycologist Lucien Quélet independently described the species under the name Marasmius recubans in 1873, but much later in 1987 Machiel Noordeloos determined that Sowerby's name takes precedence and defined the combination Marasmius setosus for it.

Then in 2015 Vladimír Antonín and Alexander Urban transferred it to the new genus Rhizomarasmius.

[1] Marasmius saccharinus is a similar fungus which has been confused with R. setosus by some authors, but which, however, lacks the hairs on the stipe.

There are other tiny Marasmius species such as M. epiphyllus which are comparable but which again have a bald stipe.