Mycorrhizal with oak, the fungus fruits on the ground singly, scattered, or in groups in woods.

Fruit bodies (mushrooms) have convex to flat, yellowish to brownish-red caps up to 10 cm (4 in) in diameter.

The species was first described as Boletus ravenelii by Miles Joseph Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis in 1853.

Specimens were sent to them by American botanist Henry William Ravenel, who collected them in South Carolina.

They considered the bolete "a most splendid species closely allied to B. hemichrysus, and, like that, remarkable for the pulverulent veil.

[3] William Alphonso Murrill transferred the fungus to the genus Pulveroboletus in 1909, giving it the name by which it is known today.

The partial veil, also bright yellow, is cottony and powdery, and remains as a ring on the upper portion of the stem,[3] although in some specimens it merges gradually with the stipe surface and becomes inconspicuous.

[6] The fruit bodies of Pulveroboletus ravenelii grow on the ground singly, scattered, or in groups in woods under conifers.

In North America, it is distributed from eastern Canada extending south to the Gulf of Mexico, and west to Texas, Michigan, and California.