In fact those fungi have not been found to be a closely related group, and today the name only has historical interest, though the taxonomic rules imply that it still needs to be recorded.

[1][2][3] In 1871 in his "Führer in die Pilzkunde" ("Guide to Mycology"), Paul Kummer introduced Pleurotus as a genus,[4] but the allocation of P. cornucopiae to it was only done later in 1910 by Léon Louis Rolland.

The forms are easily distinguishable by the cap colour, but they are sometimes considered to be just varieties of the same species, and as a consequence golden oyster mushrooms are sometimes identified using the older scientific name Pleurotus cornucopiae.

Appearing from spring to late summer, it is distributed in the wild throughout Europe (from August to November),[10] where it varies locally between common and fairly rare.

[10] A Chinese paper evaluated several commercially available varieties of P. cornucopiae and reported that it in the Shanghai area an appropriate growth medium is cotton-seed hulls and wood-chips, with 65% water content.