The fungus was first described in 1873 by Miles Berkeley and Christopher Edmund Broome as Hydnum thwaitesii, from collections made in Sri Lanka.

[4] Gordon Herriot Cunningham's species Hydnum carbonarium,[5] described from New Zealand in 1958, is a synonym of S. thwaitesii.

[1] The specific epithet thwaitesii honors English botanist and entomologist George Henry Kendrick Thwaites, who was superintendent of the botanical gardens at Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

[6] The fruit bodies of Sarcodon thwaitesii have flattened, depressed, or rounded caps measuring 2.5–4.5 cm (1.0–1.8 in) in diameter.

Spores are brown in mass; microscopically, they are roughly spherical, covered with moderate sized growths (tubercules), and measure 6–8 by 6–7 μm.