Perennial or biennial herbs, often with stout leafy stem, bulbs or creeping rhizomes. Leaves mostly cauline, palmatisect or lobed, rarely undivided and dentate. Flowers in simple or branched racemes, rarely 1-2, zygomorphic. Pedicels 2-bracteolate. Sepals 5, petaloid, the upper one shaped l ike a helmet, the 2 lateral ones wider than the basal pair. Petals 2, with a long stipe and small hooded limb, nectariferous staminodes 3-8. Stamens many. Carpels 3-7, free. with many ovules. Follicles triquetrous, rarely oblong with winged or costate seeds.