Medium mushroom, 1 to 4 inches across. Cap dark to bright red, smooth, with white flesh under skin. Stalk an inch and a half to 4 inches tall, fairly thick, red to pink, often fading to white at top. Gills crowded, white when young, turning creamy or yellowish, attached to stalk.

Mycorrhizal with pine trees, which means it attaches to pine roots, drawing sugars out of the pine, and, in turn, supplying the pine with minerals drawn from the soil. In Wildwood, it is quite common when conditions are good, under pines on the eastern slope.

R. tenuiceps looks very similar, but is supposedly so fragile it falls apart when handled. It is mycorrhizal with oaks, and thus not impossible in Wildwood. If the stalk is pure white and it lives in damp places, it's probably the Sickener, R. emetica. Many other red-capped Russulas are known.

This species is supposedly horribly bitter, and suspected of being poisonous, like its cousin the Sickener, R. emetica.