Fruiting from summer to autumn, the mushrooms often develop under masses of leaves or conifer needles in a mycorrhizal association with trees from several genera, including fir, spruce, Douglas-fir, and hemlock.

They become more palatable once parasitized by the ascomycete fungus Hypomyces lactifluorum, a bright orange mold that covers the fruit body and transforms them into lobster mushrooms.

Russula brevipes was initially described by American mycologist Charles Horton Peck in 1890, from specimens collected in Quogue, New York.

[3] It is classified in the subsection Lactaroideae, a grouping of similar Russula species characterized by having whitish to pale yellow fruit bodies, compact and hard flesh, abundant lamellulae (short gills), and the absence of clamp connections.

Fries's concept of R. delica included: a white fruit body that did not change color; a smooth, shiny cap; and thin, widely spaced gills.

To add to the confusion, Rolf Singer and later Robert Kühner and Henri Romagnesi described other species they named Russula delica.

The name, R. brevipes, is attached to a type collection, has a reasonably explicit original description, and provides a stable point about which a species concept can be formed.

[2] In a 2012 publication, mycologist Mike Davis and colleagues suggest that western North American Russula brevipes comprise a complex of at least four distinct species.

The gills are narrow and thin, decurrent in attachment, nearly white when young but becoming pale yellow to buff with age, and sometimes forked near the stipe.

[13] The Pacific Northwest species Russula cascadensis also resembles R. brevipes, but has an acrid taste and smaller fruit bodies.

Similar to R. brevipes in overall morphology, it has somewhat larger spores (9–12 by 7–8.5 μm) with a surface ornamentation featuring prominent warts interconnected by a zebra-like patterns of ridges.

[24] "Although attractive when clean and crisp, this harmless, prolific mushroom is constantly maligned because it mimics prized edibles such as the white matsutake and forms promising 'shrumps' like those of the king bolete and chanterelle."

In this form, the surface of the fruit body develops into a hard, thin crust dotted with minute pimples, and the gills are reduced to blunt ridges.