Basidiocarps (fruit bodies), when produced, are gelatinous and are colloquially classed among the "jelly fungi".

Tremella sanguinea, shown to be a Phaeotremella species by DNA sequencing, is cultivated in China as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.

[2][3] Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has however shown that Tremella is paraphyletic (and hence artificial).

[11] The basidia are "tremelloid" (globose to ellipsoid and vertically or diagonally septate), giving rise to long, sinuous sterigmata or epibasidia on which the basidiospores are produced.

These spores are smooth, globose to ellipsoid, and germinate by hyphal tube or by yeast cells.