Perennial, robust herbs, often with very thick roots, erect, branched, ± hairy below with simple hairs. Basal leaves large, pinnatisect, with oblong-lanceolate or linear lobes; lobes entire or serrate; upper leaves similar but smaller; uppermost sinuate-dentate to entire. Racemes much branched, panicled, large, ebracteate, increasing in length in fruit. Flowers large or mediocre, complete or incomplete, sometimes monoecious (upper males and lower females) or perianth wanting, white, yellowish or lilac; pedicels filiform, spreading or sometimes deflexed. Sepals broadly elliptic, not saccate, erect, often thin and petaloid. Petals slightly longer than the sepals, obovate, cuneate below, apex sometimes crenulate. Stamens 6-16, subequal, filaments simple; anthers oblong, obtuse. Lateral nectar glands semi-annular, incomplete towards the inner side; middle glands joining the laterals. Ovary obovate-orbicular, bilobed, bilocular, with 1 ovule in each locule, apex ± emarginate with discoid sessile or subsessile stigma. Siliculae often large, laterally flattened or compressed, bilobed, sometimes didymous, indehiscent but breaking longitudinally into two 1-seeded halves along the narrow septum, apex deeply and broadly notched, base slightly to distinctly notched; valves orbicular or obovate, winged, glabrous; septum very narrow, submembranous; seed 1 in each locule, large, almost orbicular, brown or blackish; radicle accumbent.
About 7 species, chiefly in C.Asia and the Himalayas; only 2 species recorded for our area.
