[1] The genus was circumscribed by Dutch mycologist Rudolph Arnold Maas Geesteranus in 1962.

The type species is Mycorrhaphium adustum (formerly referred to Hydnum).

Fruit bodies of species in the genus have caps, stipes, and a hydnoid (tooth-like) hymenophore.

There is a dimitic hyphal system, where the skeletal hyphae are found only in the tissue of the "teeth", and a lack of cystidia.

[2] Walter Jülich created the family Mycorrhaphiaceae to contain the type genus Mycorrhaphium.