Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial. Trichomes simple and stalked, 1- or 2-forked or dendritic. Stems erect or ascending, sometimes decumbent. Basal leaves petiolate, not rosulate, simple, pinnately lobed or coarsely dentate, rarely subentire. Cauline leaves petiolate or subsessile not auriculate, entire, dentate, or pinnatifid. Racemes several flowered, bracteate or ebracteate. Fruiting pedicels erect, ascending, divaricate, or rarely recurved. Sepals oblong, erect, glabrous or pubescent, base of lateral pair not saccate. Petals white or pink, longer than sepals; blade obovate, spatulate, or oblanceolate, apex obtuse; claw obscurely distinct. Stamens 6, slightly tetradynamous; filaments dilated or not dilated at base; anthers ovate or oblong, apex obtuse or apiculate. Nectar glands confluent and subtending bases of all stamens. Ovules 15-50 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques, linear, latiseptate, ± rectangular in cross section, sessile; valves with a prominent midvein and 2 marginal veins and less prominent, reticulate lateral veins, pubescent or rarely glabrescent, torulose; replum rounded; septum complete; style obsolete or to 1 mm; stigma capitate, entire or 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate, wingless or distally margined, oblong, slightly flattened; seed coat minutely reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons obliquely accumbent.

Five species: China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan; four species (three endemic) in China.