The species was originally collected in Michigan by Alexander H. Smith on September 3, 1957 on Populus.

In 1993, Banerjee & Sundberg described it as Pluteus salicinus var.

In 2014 it was elevated to species rank by Alfredo Justo, Ekaterina Malysheva and Drew Minnis.

[1] Pluteus americanus grows solitary or gregarious on the wood of Fraxinus, Acer saccharum, Betula papyrifera and Populus in July through October and is widely distributed across Eastern North America, and may occur in the west.

It is also found in the Russian Far East (Primorsky Territory).