It produces small, pustular, gelatinous basidiocarps (fruit bodies) and is parasitic on ascocarps of Lophodermium species on decaying pine needles.

Tremella translucens was first published in 1938 by mycologist Hugh Douglas Gordon based on collections from Scotland on decaying pine needles.

[3] Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has however shown that Tremella translucens belongs in the genus Phaeotremella.

[2][4] Phaeotremella translucens is a parasite of Lophodermium species growing on decaying pine needles, typically those still attached to brash or branches.

[2] The species was originally described from the United Kingdom, but has also been recorded in Europe from Austria, Bosnia, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Spain.