The fruit body forms small, hard, flat crust-like aggregations that resemble broken pieces of ceramic tile.

A saprobic species, it grows on well-decayed oak wood in Asia, northern Europe, and North America.

Measuring 3–5 μm wide, they are vertically arranged, thin to moderately thick-walled, and form transitions to pseudocystidia.

The spores are short-ellipsoid in shape, thin-walled or with a slight wall thickening, smooth, typically measuring 4.5–5 by 3–3.2 μm.

[6] Xylobolus frustulatus is readily identified in the field because of its distinctive strongly cracked fruit bodies.

It forms a crust-like, spreading patch of spongy, pliant overlapping caps on rotting deciduous wood, particularly alder.

Found in northern Europe,[7] and North America,[4] it has also been recorded from Asia, including Japan[9] and Taiwan.

[10] In terms of the classification of white rot fungi, X. frustulatus is a selective degrader, meaning that it breaks down lignin and hemicellulose faster than cellulose.

[12] Sporulation generally takes place during the summer, as most specimens from autumn and early spring are sterile with the hymenium consisting only of acanthocystidia.