Cheiranthus Linnaeus; Cheirinia Link; Cuspidaria (de Candolle) Besser; Syrenia Andrzejowski ex Besser.

Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial, rarely subshrubs or shrubs. Trichomes sessile, medifixed, appressed, malpighiaceous or 3-5(-8)-rayed stellate. Stems simple or branched basally and/or apically. Basal leaves petiolate, rosulate, simple, entire or dentate, rarely pinnatifid or pinnatisect. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile, cuneate or attenuate at base, rarely auriculate, entire or dentate. Racemes ebracteate or basally bracteate, rarely bracteate throughout, corymbose, elongated or not in fruit. Fruiting pedicels slender or thickened and nearly as wide as fruit, erect, ascending, divaricate, or reflexed. Sepals oblong or linear, erect, pubescent, base of lateral pair saccate or not. Petals yellow or orange, rarely white, pink, purple, or violet; blade suborbicular, obovate, spatulate, or oblong, apex rounded or emarginate; claw differentiated from blade, subequaling or longer than sepals. Stamens 6, erect, tetradynamous; anthers oblong or linear. Nectar glands 1, 2, or 4, distinct or confluent and subtending bases of all stamens; median glands present or absent. Ovules 15-100 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques or rarely silicles, linear or rarely oblong, terete, 4-angled, latiseptate, or angustiseptate, sessile or rarely shortly stipitate; valves with an obscure to prominent midvein, pubescent on outside, rarely also on inside, keeled or not, smooth or torulose; replum rounded; septum complete, membranous, translucent or opaque, veinless; style obsolete or short, rarely half as long as or subequaling fruit, often pubescent; stigma capitate, entire or 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate or rarely biseriate, winged, margined, or wingless, oblong, plump or flattened; seed coat minutely reticulate, mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or rarely accumbent.

Erysimum cheiri (Linnaeus) Crantz (as Cheiranthus cheiri Linnaeus in FRPS) is a widely cultivated ornamental plant, but it is not known if it has become naturalized in China or elsewhere in Asia.

About 150 species: N hemisphere, primarily in Asia and Europe, with 14 species in Central and North America and eight species in N Africa and Macaronesia; 17 species (five endemic) in China.

(Authors: Zhou Taiyan (Cheo Tai-yien), Lu Lianli (Lou Lian-li), Yang Guang; Vladimir I. Dorofeyev, Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz)