[1][2] The species name honors Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, an Imperial Russian botanist and entomologist active on the West Coast in the 1820s and 1830s.

The plant is native to much of western North America from the Arctic northwestern Canada and Alaska to California and New Mexico.

[3] It grows in meadows and talus on high mountain slopes and other open rocky habitat.

[4] Ranunculus eschscholtzii is a perennial herb producing one or more erect stems up to 20 or 25 centimeters tall.

The flower has five to eight oval or rounded shiny yellow petals up to 1.5 centimeters long each around a central nectary with many stamens and pistils.