Annuals, biennials, or perennials [shrubs]; eglandular. Trichomes short-stalked or sessile and stellate, or distinctly stalked and subdendritic or forked, sometimes mixed with simple ones. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile; blade base not auriculate, margins usually entire. Racemes ebracteate [bracteate], often elongated in fruit. Flowers actinomorphic; sepals erect to spreading, lateral pair seldom saccate basally; petals white or yellow [orange, pink, or purple], claw present, usually distinct; filaments appendaged, winged (toothed), or unappendaged; pollen 3-colpate. Fruits silicles, dehiscent, unsegmented, latiseptate or terete; ovules 2-16(-20) per ovary; style distinct; stigma usually entire, rarely 2-lobed. Seeds biseriate or aseriate, rarely uniseriate; cotyledons accumbent or incumbent, rarely oblique.

Genera 13, species ca. 255 (3 genera, 9 species in the flora): North America, Eurasia, n Africa.

Lower Taxa

• Alyssum Linnaeus
• Aurinia Desvaux
• Berteroa de Candolle