Herbs annual or rarely biennial, mostly glabrous throughout, usually glaucous. Trichomes absent or rarely as minute papillae on pedicels. Stems erect, simple. Basal leaves subsessile, subfleshy, not rosulate, simple, entire. Cauline leaves sessile, cordate-amplexicaul or rarely auriculate at base, entire. Racemes ebracteate, elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels slender or thick and as wide as fruit, erect or divaricate. Sepals oblong or linear, erect or ascending, base of lateral pair not saccate or strongly saccate. Petals yellow or white, rarely with purple veins, longer than sepals; blade obovate, oblong, or oblanceolate, apex obtuse; claw somewhat differentiated from blade. Stamens 6, tetradynamous; filaments not dilated at base; anthers narrowly oblong, obtuse at apex. Nectar glands 2, lateral, semiannular, rarely 1 and confluent; median glands absent or rarely present. Ovules 10-50 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques, linear, terete, 4- or 8-angled, or latiseptate; valves veinless or prominently veined, smooth or torulose; replum rounded; septum complete; style to 1.5 mm; stigma capitate, entire or decurrently 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate, wingless, oblong or elliptic, plump; seed coat reticulate, mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or rarely subconduplicate.

Six species: primarily in C and SW Asia, the Caucasus, and Europe; one species in China.