It produces red to orange-yellow, lobed to firmly foliaceous, gelatinous basidiocarps (fruit bodies) and is parasitic on other fungi on dead branches of broad-leaved trees.

Tremella samoensis was first published in 1919 by American mycologist Curtis Gates Lloyd, based on a collection he made in Samoa together with material he received from the Philippines.

[3][4] Tremella flammea, described from Japan by Yosio Kobayasi, is similarly coloured (scarlet to orange) but is said to be effused-lobate and have slightly smaller spores (5 to 5.5 by 4 to 5 μm).

Kobayasi later made a collection in New Britain which he identified as T. cinnabarina and considered synonymous with Tremella dahliana, which German mycologist Paul Hennings had originally described from the same location.

The species was described from Samoa and has been reported from the Philippines,[1] Tahiti,[3] New Britain (as T. cinnabarina),[6] China,[5] Japan,[5] and the Russian Far East.