Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, erect, branched, subglabrous or hairy with simple hairs. Leaves ovate, often cordate, dentate, acute; lower long petioled. Racemes short, ebracteate, lax in fruit. Flowers large, purple or white; pedicel filiform, elongated and spreading in fruit. Sepals erect, inner pair saccate at base. Petals about twice as long as sepals, obovate, long clawed. Stamens 6; filaments linear; anthers long, obtuse. Lateral nectar glands annular, bilobed towards the outer side and trilobed towards the inner side; middle ones absent. Ovary elliptic or lanceolate, with a short gynophore, 4-6-ovuled; stigma bilobed on a short style. Fruit large, broadly elliptic on a distinct carpophore, compressed, bilocular, broadly septate, dehiscent; valves membranous, reticulately veined; septum membranous, not veined; seeds large, few, compressed, orbicular, winged, biseriate; radicle accumbent.
3 species in C. and S.E. Europe; widely introduced and cultivated as an ornamental; only 1 species was found cultivated, as an ornamental, in our area.
