Herbs annual or biennial, rarely short-lived perennial. Trichomes absent or simple. Stems erect, sometimes decumbent. Basal leaves long petiolate, rosulate, simple, crenate, dentate, or sinuate. Cauline leaves petiolate, dentate. Racemes several flowered, ebracteate, bracteate throughout, or only basally bracteate. Fruiting pedicels slender or thickened, narrower than or as thick as fruit, terete. Sepals oblong, erect, glabrous, base of lateral pair not saccate. Petals white, longer than sepals; blade oblanceolate, apex obtuse; claw obscurely differentiated from blade. Stamens 6, slightly tetradynamous; filaments not dilated at base; anthers ovate or oblong, obtuse at apex. Nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of all stamens. Ovules 4-20 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques, linear or oblong, terete or 4-angled, sessile; valves with a prominent midvein and distinct marginal veins, glabrous or scabrous, torulose; replum rounded; septum complete; style obsolete or distinct and to 6 mm; stigma capitate. Seeds uniseriate, wingless, oblong, plump; seed coat longitudinally striate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent.

Two species: one endemic to the Caucasus, the other native to SW Asia and Europe and naturalized elsewhere as a cosmopolitan weed.