The species is found in North America east of the Rocky Mountains, and in eastern Asia, including China, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Both the pore surface and the whitish cap flesh will stain pink to reddish gray, and eventually turn black after being cut or injured.

[6] In 1931, French mycologist Jean-Edouard Gilbert transferred the species to his newly created genus Porphyrellus,[7] but this name has since been subsumed into Tylopilus.

[9] Murrill reduced this name to synonymy with T. alboater in 1916, and noted that Peck's description was made from young material obtained "before the white tubes had been colored by mature spores".

The cap surface is dry, with a velvet-like texture, although in age it can become rimose (developing a network of cracks and small crevices).

The cap color is initially black to dark grayish brown; young specimens can have a whitish bloom (resembling a dusting of fine powder) on the surface.

[18] The cap flesh is whitish, but after it is cut or injured, it will stain pink to reddish gray, and eventually turn black.

[17] T. atratus produces smaller fruit bodies with caps up to 9 cm (3.5 in) in diameter, and its whitish flesh directly stains black without any intermediate reddish phase when injured.

[16] T. griseocarneus, found in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains of North America, is readily distinguished from T. alboater by the strong orange to red discoloration that results when cutting or damaging the flesh of a fresh specimen.

Furthermore, T. griseocarneus lacks the whitish bloom present on young caps of T. alboater, and typically has a more prominently reticulated stem.

[23] Tylopilus alboater is a mycorrhizal species, and its fruit bodies grow on the ground solitarily, scattered, or in groups under deciduous trees, particularly oak.

[24] The distribution ranges from Quebec in Canada,[25] south to the New England states down to Florida, extending west to Missouri,[17] Michigan, and Texas.