The family in its current sense is based on molecular research and contains just three genera of temperate corticioid fungi.

[2] The family was not, however, widely adopted, most mycological texts preferring to place all corticioid fungi (including Vuilleminia species) in the Corticiaceae.

[3] As a result, the Corticiaceae was conserved against the Vuilleminiaceae under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature,[4] but this suppression of the name only applies if the two families are considered identical.

Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has resurrected and redefined the Vuilleminiaceae for a small clade of corticioid fungi distinct from the Corticiaceae.

[5] All fungi within the family are wood-rotting saprotrophs, growing on dead attached branches of trees and shrubs.