Tubifera ferruginosa
Raspberry slime mold, red raspberry slime mold
Red raspberry slime mold. What a marvellous name—delicious and repulsive at the same time! It is found on decaying wood.
Identification: In its prime, raspberry slime mold attracts attention with its brilliant color, but at other stages it appears pink, purplish, brownish, or gray. It appears as irregular, pillowy blotches called aethalia, up to 6″ (15 cm) around. Close inspection reveals small rounded bumps on the surface, each about 1/32″ (0.5 mm) around, the individual plasmodia. The bumps resemble those on a raspberry. Inside the mass, each plasmodium is shaped like a little cigar. The fruiting bodies appear from June to November.
Edibility: Not edible.
Habitats: On decaying wood, throughout temperate regions of the world.
Online References:
7/1/2026 · Widgeon Cove, Harpswell, Maine · ≈ 4 × 6″ (10 × 16 cm) 
7/5/2025 · Cathance River Nature Preserve, Topsham, Maine · ≈ 3½ × 3½″ (8.6 × 9.5 cm) 
6/20/2021 · Heath, Cathance River Nature Preserve, Highland Green, Topsham, Maine · ≈ 4 × 3½″ (10 × 8.6 cm) 
7/14/2013 · Ball Hill Trail, Leominster State Forest, Leominster, Massachusetts · ≈ 3½ × 4″ (8.8 × 10 cm) 
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 3 × 2″ (8 × 5.4 cm) 
6/23/2013 · Rocky Ridge Trail, Beaver Brook Conservation Area, Hollis, New Hampshire · ≈ 3½ × 4″ (8.9 × 10 cm) 
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 1½ × 1¾″ (4.2 × 4.5 cm) 
7/1/2023 · Pocahontas State Park, Chesterfield, Virginia 
6/23/2013 · Rocky Ridge Trail, Beaver Brook Conservation Area, Hollis, New Hampshire · ≈ 3 × 3″ (8.5 × 7.8 cm) 
7/1/2023 · Pocahontas State Park, Chesterfield, Virginia 
6/20/2021 · Heath, Cathance River Nature Preserve, Highland Green, Topsham, Maine · ≈ 3½ × 3″ (9.7 × 7.8 cm) 
8/12/2009 · Pearl Hill State Park, Townsend, Massachusetts · ≈ 10 × 7″ (26 × 18 cm) 
ID is uncertain 
| Roughly 75 people in North America are poisoned each year by mushrooms, often from eating a poisonous species that resembles an edible species. Though deaths are rare, there is no cure short of a liver transplant for severe poisoning. Don’t eat any mushroom unless you are absolutely certain of its identity! Please don’t trust the identifications on this site. We aren’t mushroom experts and we haven’t focused on safely identifying edible species. |
Tubifera ferruginosa description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.
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