Annual or biennial herb, 10-60 cm tall, erect or suberect, glabrous or sparsely hairy with simple hairs. Leaves very variable in size, pinnate, usually with 5-8 pairs of lateral leaflets and a terminal one, stalked with bases of petiole auricled; leaflets usually subrounded in lower leaves and ovate-oblong in upper leaves, lobulate, serrate to almost entire, 5-25 mm long, 3-10 mm broad. Racemes 20-30-flowered, up to 15 cm long in fruit. Flowers 3-4 mm across, white; pedicels up to 10 mm long in fruit, ascending. Sepals c. 2.5 mm long. Petals c. 4 (-5) mm long. Stamens c. 2:3 mm long. Siliquae linear, compressed, (15-) 20-30 mm long, 1 mm broad, straight, glabrous; valves faintly veined; style usually very short, c. 1 mm long with minute stigma; septum not veined; seeds many, c. 1 mm long, oblong.
Fl. Per.: May -July.
Type: Described from Europe, Herb. Linn. no. 835/9 (LINN).
Distribution: Europe and Asia.
A very variable species but auricled leaf bases are distinctive. States of infraspecific taxa based on leaflet shape, branching etc. are doubtful.
