Common Name: BUTTERCUP FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, woody vine [shrub], occasionally aquatic. Leaf: generally basal and cauline, alternate or opposite, simple or compound; petioles at base generally flat, occasionally sheathing or stipule-like. Inflorescence: cyme, raceme, panicle, or flowers 1. Flower: generally bisexual, generally radial; sepals 3--6(20), free, early-deciduous or withering in fruit, generally green; petals 0--many, generally free; stamens generally 5--many, staminodes generally 0; pistils 1--many, ovary superior, chamber 1, style 0--1, generally +- persistent as beak, ovules 1--many. Fruit: achene, follicle, berry, +- utricle in Trautvetteria, in aggregate or not, 1--many-seeded.
Genera In Family: +- 60 genera, 1700 species: worldwide, especially northern temperate, tropical mountains; many ornamental (Adonis, Aquilegia, Clematis, Consolida, Delphinium, Helleborus, Nigella). Toxicity: some highly TOXIC (Aconitum, Actaea, Delphinium, Ranunculus). Note: Taxa of Isopyrum in TJM (1993) moved to Enemion; Kumlienia moved to Ranunculus.
eFlora Treatment Author: Margriet Wetherwax & Dieter H. Wilken, family description, key to genera
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: MOUSETAIL
Habit: Annual, short-lived, generally tufted. Leaf: basal, simple, linear. Inflorescence: scapose, 1-flowered. Flower: sepals (3)5(8), 1.5--4 mm, alike, free, green or scarious-margined, spurred; petals 0--5, free, linear to narrowly spoon-shaped, long-clawed, white; stamens 5--25; pistils 10--400, 1--2.5 mm, ovules 1, styles thread-like. Fruit: achene, angled, wall not veined, styles persistent, +- enlarged in fruit; receptacle elongate, generally growing and producing ovules after flower.
Etymology: (Greek: mus, mouse, and oura, tail)
eFlora Treatment Author: Alan T. Whittemore
Reference: Whittemore 1997 FNANM 3:135--138