The species was first described in 1927 by Australian mycologist John Burton Cleland as Paxillus infundibuliformis. The initial specimens were found in Kuitpo Forest, Mount Lofty, Mount Sedgwick, and near Bendigo. Rolf Singer's 1945 Phylloporus infundibuliformis is a synonym. It was given its current name in 1999 when Andreas Bresinsky and colleagues, studying the genus Paxillus, determined that several Southern Hemisphere species were found to be in a lineage that is most closely related to the brown rot genus Serpula.