Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, glabrous, often glaucous, rarely hairy with simple hairs, erect or suberect. Leaves simple, usually obovate, oblong, shortly stalked; cauline leaves mostly ovate or lanceolate, cordate, (auricles rarely suppressed or absent), amplexicaul, entire or toothed. Racemes corymbose, often elongating in fruit, ebracteate. Flowers small, white, pinkish or yellowish; pedicel filiform, spreading or ascending in fruit. Sepals erect, not saccate, often with broad membranous margin. Petals twice to as long as the sepals, oblongobovate, cuneate below. Stamens 6; filaments linear, not appendaged. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, semilunar with short outer process; middle absent. Ovary± ellipsoid, often narrowly margined, bilocular, 2-16 ovuled; stigma capitate, subbilobed on a short or long style. Siliculae usually obovate-oblong or sub-orbicular, laterally flattened, slightly to broadly winged (rarely wings suppressed), often± notched at the apex (rarely entire), bilocular, dehiscent, glabrous; septum narrowly elliptic, membranous, not veined; seeds ellipsoid, brown; radicle accumbent.