[3] The genus is named for Alexander Zahlbruckner, "the eminent lichenologist, curator of the botanical section of the Imperial Natural History Museum, at Vienna, Austria".

[4] Aino Henssen emended the genus in 1977, adding five newly described species in the process.

[5] All species of Zahlbrucknerella have filamentous thallus that forms olive, brown, or black tufts on rocks that are periodically inundated with water, like those in seepage channels or on the side of lakes and rivers.

Unlike other genera in the Lichinaceae, the ascocarp of Zahlbrucknerella is not in the form of pycnoascocarps, but rather is a mass of generative tissue.

Other Lichinaceae genera with a similar appearance, and with which Zahlbrucknerella has historically been confused, include Ephebe, Placynthium, and Spilonema.