The holotype and paratype microscope slides were accessioned into the University of Alberta palaeobotanical collections and the formal description of the new genus and species was published by Randolph Currah, Ruth Stockey, and Ben LePage (1998) in the journal Mycologia.

They chose the specific epithet allenbyensis as a reference to the mining ghost town of Allenby in Canada that is also the namesake of the type locality's parent formation.

[1] Paleoserenomyces is known exclusively from the Princeton Chert, a fossil locality in British Columbia, Canada,[1] which comprises an anatomically preserved flora of Eocene Epoch age, with rich species abundance and diversity.

The chert is located in exposures of the Allenby Formation on the east bank of the Similkameen River, 8.5 km (5.3 mi) south of the town of Princeton, British Columbia.

The highlands, including the Allenby Formation, have been described as one of the "Great Canadian Lagerstätten"[7] based on the diversity, quality and unique nature of the biotas that are preserved.

The Eocene Okanagan Highlands temperate-subtropical biome preserved across a large transect of lakes recorded many of the earliest appearances of modern genera, while also documenting the last stands of ancient lines.

[6] The Okanagan Highland sites, such as the Princeton chert represent upland lake systems that were surrounded by a warm temperate ecosystem with nearby volcanism.

[7] The highlands likely had a mesic upper microthermal to lower mesothermal climate, in which winter temperatures rarely dropped low enough for snow, and which were seasonably equitable.

[8] The warm temperate uplands floras of the Allenby Formation and greater highlands in association with downfaulted lacustrine basins and active volcanism are noted to have no exact modern equivalents.