 Christiaan Hendrik Persoon transferred the species to the genus "Scleroderma" in his 1801 work "Synopsis methodica fungorum".Elias Fries's "Scleroderma geaster" (published in 1829) is a synonym; the epithet "geaster" refers to the similarity with earthstar fungi of the genus "Geastrum".In 1848, Joseph-Henri Léveillé considered the star-shaped opening of mature fruit bodies to be a distinct characteristic and proposed the genus "Sclerangium" to contain the taxon.