Annuals; (littoral or aquatic); scapose; glabrous throughout. Stems erect, unbranched. Leaves (persistent); basal; rosulate; sessile; blade margins entire; cauline absent. Racemes (lax or somewhat congested), slightly or considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels usually ascending, rarely divaricate, divaricate-ascending, or suberect, slender or stout. Flowers: sepals (sometimes persistent), ascending to erect, ovate -oblong, lateral pair not saccate basally; petals (rarely absent), white, narrowly oblanceolate to lingulate, (slightly exceeding sepals), claw undifferentiated from blade, apex obtuse; stamens subequal; filaments not dilated basally; anthers ovate; nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of stamens. Fruits silicles, shortly stipitate, obovoid to ellipsoid [oblong], smooth, terete or slightly inflated; valves each not veined; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 4-18 per ovary; style absent; stigma capitate. Seeds biseriate, slightly compressed, not winged, oblong; seed coat not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent. x = 14, 15.

Sep elliptic-ovate; pet white, narrowly oblong-ovate; glands forming a continuous ring around the base of the ovary within the stamens; ovary broadly elliptic, with 2-7 ovules per locule; stigma sessile; fr elliptic or oblong, somewhat flattened contrary to the septum, few-seeded; small plants with a basal rosette of subulate or linear lvs and a short, loose, few-fld raceme of minute fls. 2, the other African.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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