C. gracilis Caltha scaposa is a low, perennial herb with one or two yellow hermaphrodite saucer-shaped flowers.

The leaf blade is long hart-shaped or sometimes kidney-shaped (1½-3½ x 1–3 cm), with a blunt tip and an entire, scalloped or tooth-bearing margin.

As all marsh-marigolds, it lacks petals, but the five to nine (most often six) sepals are petal-like, strikingly yellow, inverted egg-shaped with a blunt tip, 10-15 x 6–8 mm.

C. natans is a floating species with leaves along the rooting stems and with white or pink flowers of less than 1½ cm.

Caltha leptosepala that occurs in western North-America mostly has white flowers, and the rare yellow-flowered variety has lanceolate sepals.