[4][5] Fossil evidence suggests that despite no longer occurring there, they inhabited Antarctica up to the mid-late Pliocene, even while glaciations were rapidly altering the landscape.

[8] Indeterminate achenes have been found from Neogene strata from the Meyer Desert Formation biota in the Transantarctic Mountains, which appear to have inhabited a periglacial environment.

[9] Buttercups are mostly perennial, but occasionally annual or biennial, herbaceous, aquatic or terrestrial plants, often with leaves in a rosette at the base of the stem.

[citation needed] The leaves lack stipules, have petioles, are palmately veined, entire, more or less deeply incised, or compound, and leaflets or leaf segments may be very fine and linear in aquatic species.

[12] The common name buttercup may derive from a false belief that the plants give butter its characteristic yellow hue[citation needed] (in fact it is poisonous to cows and other livestock).

A popular children's game involves holding a buttercup up to the chin; a yellow reflection is supposed to indicate a fondness for butter.

[14] In ancient Rome, a species of buttercup was held to the skin by slaves attempting to remove forehead tattoos made by their owners.

[15]: 106 In the interior of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the buttercup is called "Coyote's eyes"—ʔiceyéeyenm sílu in Nez Perce[16] and spilyaynmí áčaš in Sahaptin.

Poisoning in livestock can occur where buttercups are abundant in overgrazed fields where little other edible plant growth is left, and the animals eat them out of desperation.

Symptoms of poisoning include bloody diarrhea, excessive salivation, colic, and severe blistering of the mouth, mucous membranes and gastrointestinal tract.