Annuals (rarely perennials), herbs, mostly forming branched creeping mats with several shoots from rootstock. Leaves basal and cauline; arranged variously: mostly imbricately arranged on shoots, sometimes not so in opposite phyllotaxy, pedicellate or sessile or subsessile; variously shaped: linear, lanceolate, elliptic, ovate, obovate, oblanceolate; basal leaves usually longer than cauline leaves, lax - densely rosulate. Inflorescence a raceme, fascicles or cymes. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, 4-5 (-9) merous. Calyx divided, united at base, lobes joined by an inner membrane or inner membrane absent, tube cons icuous, persistent. Corolla campanulate to infundibuliform or hypocraetiform, mostly in shades of blue, violet, purple, reddish, pink, yellow, cream or white; provided with subsidiary lobes or plicate, plicae smaller than and alternating with corolla lobes; corolla throat naked inside i.e. fimbriae absent. Anther corresponding with the number of petals. Anthers as a rule basifixed with filaments inserted deep into corolla tube and alternate to corolla lobes or opposing the subsidiary lobes (plicae). Ovary superior, unilocular, placentation parietal, style short or absent, stigmas two, persistent, mostly coiled. Nectaries present at the base of the ovary. Capsule elliptic-oblong, long or short stalked or subsessile, dehiscing septicidally from apex. Seeds brownish or dark brownish, ellipsoidal, ovate or rounded, reticulate.

A genus of 200-300 species, distributed in cold and alpine regions of both the hemispheres. In Pakistan, represented by 10 species, distributed in N.W. Pakistan (Chitral, Gilgit, Baltistan, Hazara, Potohar, and N.W.F.P.) and Kashmir.