Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are agaricoid (gilled mushrooms) producing pink basidiospores that are unevenly roughened or pustular under the microscope.

In 2009, as a result of molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, CoDavid et al. found that Clitopilus species form a clade nested within Rhodocybe species and proposed that these genera should be merged so that the new combined genus (called Clitopilus since it is the earlier name) would be monophyletic (a natural group).

[1] Additional research, however, showed that the core groupings of Clitopilus and Rhodocybe were both monophyletic, if outlying species were moved to new genera (Rhodophana, Clitocella, and Clitopilopsis).

[2][3] Rhodocybe species produce agaricoid fruit bodies of various colours with a pleurotoid, collybioid, mycenoid, clitocyboid, or tricholomatoid habit.

Microscopically, basidiospores have pronounced undulate-pustulate ornamentations, cystidia are mostly present, and clamp connections are absent.