The suborder contains a diverse assemblage fruit body morphologies, including boletes, gasteroid forms, earthstars (genus Astraeus), and puffballs.

The Sclerodermatineae was first legitimately used by Manfred Binder and Andreas Bresinsky in 2002 based on molecular analyses of nuclear ribosomal large subunit (25S) rRNA sequences from 60 species of Boletales.

Of the nine genera assigned to the Sclerodermatineae, three are hymenomycetes (Boletinellus, Gyroporus, and Phlebopus), and six are gasteroid (Astraeus, Calostoma, Diplocystis, Pisolithus, and Scleroderma).

[2] Based on ancestral reconstruction studies, the earliest (basal) members of the Sclerodermatineae originated in the late Cretaceous (145–66 Ma).

Boletoid fruit bodies sometimes have hollow stipes with a surface that is smooth to somewhat furfuraceous (covered with flaky particles), and lack the reticulation (a net-like pattern of interlacing lines) characteristic of some members of the Boletaceae.

[2] Gasteroid fruit body types are either roughly spherical or tuberous, occasionally with stipes, and usually have a peridium that is either simple or multi-layered.

Diplocystis and Tremellogaster are each distinct in their morphologies: the former comprises compound fruit bodies each with 3–60 spore sacs crowded together,[21] while the latter forms a roughly spherical sporocarp with a thick multi-layered peridium.

[22] Calostoma (Greek for "pretty mouth") is morphologically distinct from other gasteroid members, having a fruit body that forms a globed, spore-bearing head composed of a three-layered peridium.