Herbs annual. Trichomes eglandular, subsessile, stellate, with basally forked rays, sometimes mixed with long-stalked dendritic ones, rarely with a few simple ones on the stem. Stems erect, often with two opposite basal branches from axils of cotyledons, other branches alternate. Basal leaves soon withered. Cauline leaves petiolate, dentate or entire. Racemes few flowered, ebracteate, elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate. Sepals narrowly oblong, connivent, erect, base of lateral pair strongly saccate. Petals purple, pink, or white, longer than sepals; blade narrowly oblanceolate or oblong-obovate, apex obtuse; claw distinct. Stamens 6, strongly tetradynamous; filaments not dilated at base; anthers linear, obtuse at apex. Nectar glands 2, lateral, semiannular, intrastaminal; median glands absent. Ovules 4-24 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques or silicles, linear, oblong, or ovate, strongly latiseptate; valves papery, with a distinct midvein, pubescent, strongly torulose; gynophore absent or rarely to 1 mm; replum rounded, undulate; septum complete, thickened, opaque, veinless; style slender, 1-5 mm; stigma conical, 2-lobed, lobes prominent, connivent, decurrent. Seeds uniseriate, broadly winged, orbicular or nearly so, strongly flattened; seed coat minutely reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent.

Two species: C and SW Asia; one species in China.