Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial with a woody caudex. Trichomes a mixture of simple, forked, or stellate, sometimes malpighiaceous. Stems erect or ascending. Basal leaves not rosulate, simple, entire or variously dentate or pinnatifid. Cauline leaves petiolate or subsessile, not auriculate, entire, dentate, or rarely lobed. Racemes few to many flowered, ebracteate or rarely bracteate. Fruiting pedicels slender or thickened, ascending or divaricate. Sepals ovate or narrowly oblong, erect, glabrous or pubescent, base of lateral pair saccate or not. Petals white, pink, or purple, longer than sepals; blade obovate, spatulate, oblong, or oblanceolate, apex obtuse or rounded; claw well developed. Stamens 6, erect, tetradynamous; filaments dilated or not at base, free or median 4 connate in 2 pairs; anthers ovate, oblong, or linear, apex apiculate or not. Median glands absent; lateral glands 1 on each side of lateral stamen, or lunar. Ovules 20-90 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques, linear, terete, 4-angled, or latiseptate, subsessile; valves glabrous or pubescent, smooth or torulose; replum rounded; septum complete; style obsolete or to 1 mm or longer; stigma conical, 2-lobed, lobes connivent, often connate, opposite replum. Seeds uniseriate, wingless, oblong or ovate, plump or slightly flattened; seed coat reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or rarely accumbent.
Home