Annual or perennial herbs, glabrous, (rarely hairy with simple often glan¬dular hairs), erect, branched. Leaves simple, somewhat fleshy, sessile, glabrous, glaucous, obovate or ovate; lower obovate, semi-amplexicaul; upper ovate, cordate, amplexicaul. Racemes lax, ebracteate. Flowers usually large, white, pink or violet; pedicel short, somewhat thickened in fruit. Sepals erect, unequal, inner broad and saccate at the base. Petals about twice as long as the sepals, obovate, long clawed, apex truncate. Stamens 6; filament linear; anthers broadly linear, acute. Lateral nectar glands semilunate; middle absent. Ovary cylindrical, many ovuled; beak very short, sterile, style-like; stigma bilobed with decurrent lobes. Siliquae linear, compressed, somewhat angular, bilocular, dehiscent; valves glabrous with a prominent mid-rib; beak very short, sterile; septum mem¬branous, not veined; seeds many, biseriate or sub-biseriate, small, ellipsoid, brown; cotyledons conduplicate.
About 6 species, mostly in the Mediterranean region; only 1 known to the present area.
