The salmonberry is the soft, glistening aggregate fruit of Rubus spectabilis, a tall bramble of the wet coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest. Ripening from amber-yellow through salmon-pink to deep ruby-red, it looks like a large, loose raspberry and tastes mildly sweet, juicy and watery, with a gentle tartness — a foraged staple of the West Coast rather than a market fruit, since the tender berries are too fragile to ship.