Annual to perennial herbs with yellow latex. Leaves alternate, decompound, pinnatifid or pinnatisect; segments lobed or dentate. Inflorescences 1-flowered, axillary or terminal; peduncle erect, rarely recurved in fruit. Flowers large and showy. Sepals 2, caducous. Petals 4, yellow or red, sometimes spotted at the base, orbicular or obovate. Stamens indefinite; anthers extrorse, oblong or linear; filaments filiform, much elongated. Ovary linear-oblong, pilose, tuberculate or glabrous usually bilocular; stigma conical. Fruit a siliqua-like capsule, 2-celled, dehiscing almost to the base by 2 valves, leaving the seeds embeded in the spongy septum, which is formed during ripening of the fruit. Seeds numerous, pitted, ovate-reniform, without appendages.