The species share the English designation "Earth tongues" along with some better-known fungi (e.g. Geoglossum, Microglossum) with a similar general form, but in fact they are only distantly related.

[4] Fruiting bodies take the shape of unbranched to lobed bright yellowish, orangish to pale yellow-green colored, club-shaped, smooth, fleshy columns up to about 7 centimetres (3 inches) tall.

[1][5] Neolecta vitellina forms masses of conidia by budding, hinting at the possibility that it also produces a yeast state.

Neolecta is found in Asia, Northern Europe, North America, and southern Brazil.

[5] The species all live in association with trees, and at least one, N. vitellina, grows from rootlets of its host,[10] but it is not known whether the fungus is parasitic, saprotrophic, or mutualistic.