This genus serves as a polyphyletic collective for high spired, biconic columbellid species with smooth, unsculptured shells. Type species (by subsequent designation) Mitrella scripta (Linnaeus, 1758) from the Mediterranean.

Diagnosis: Protoconch smooth. Spire turreted, high compared to aperture; surface is smooth or spirally sculptured; outer lip of aperture denticulate.

Diagnosis. "Shell 4-20 mm long, biconic; spire high, acute, suture shallow; body whorl equal to or shorter than spire, aperture moderately broad, apertural lip denticulate, siphonal canal very short to moderately long, columella straight, parietal callus denticulate in some; shell surface smooth" (Radwin 1978: 337).
Remarks. Mitrella is a rather heterogeneous collection of a large number of species from all over the globe, united primarily by the simple elongate biconic shape of the shell and lack of shell sculpture. Accordingly, the genus is likely, upon further revision, to be split into many unrelated groups. Relative to the species here, most species placed in Mitrella have relatively straight-sided shells, with well-developed labial denticles and more often than not a conical multiwhorled protoconch indicative of a planktonic larval stage. Ironically, the type species is a large species from the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean with a paucispiral protoconch. It is not unusual in columbellids for related species to have different modes of larval development (this occurs for instance in Columbella).