Annuals, biennials, or, rarely, perennials; not scapose; glabrous or pubescent. Stems (simple or few to several from base), erect [ascending, decumbent], branched basally and/or distally, (glabrous or pubescent). Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal (soon caducous), rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins entire or dentate; cauline sessile, blade (base auriculate, sagittate, or amplexicaul), margins entire or dentate. Racemes (corymbose, dense or lax), considerably [slightly] elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels erect to ascending or divaricate, slender. Flowers: sepals (equal), usually erect, sometimes ascending or spreading, rarely reflexed, oblong, lateral pair not saccate basally; petals (erect basally), usually white, lavender, or purple, rarely yellow, oblanceolate, oblong, spatulate, or obovate, (margins rarely crisped), claws differentiated or not from blade, (apex rounded); stamens tetradynamous, (exserted); filaments distinct; anthers usually linear, sometimes ovate or oblong (apically coiled); nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of stamens. Fruits stipitate, linear, torulose or smooth, terete; valves each with prominent midvein, usually glabrous, rarely pilose; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 20-114 per ovary; style distinct, (cylindrical or subclavate to clavate); stigma capitate, usually strongly 2-lobed, rarely entire, (lobes opposite replum). Seeds uniseriate, plump, not winged, oblong; seed coat (minutely reticulate), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or obliquely so. x = 10, 11.
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