Annuals or biennials [perennials]; not scapose; pubescent, trichomes stellate, mixed with simple ones. Stems erect [ascending], usually branched distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal not rosulate, petiolate, blade margins entire or repand [dentate, sinuate]; cauline (middle and distal) sessile. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered, dense), considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels erect or divaricate, slender. Flowers: sepals erect-ascending [suberect, spreading], oblong, lateral pair not saccate basally; petals usually white, rarely yellow, obcordate, apex deeply 2-fid; stamens tetradynamous; filaments: median pair flattened basally, unappendaged, [laterally 1-toothed], lateral pair with basal toothlike appendage; anthers oblong, (apex obtuse); nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits sessile, oblong, or elliptic [ovate, obovate, or orbicular], smooth, slightly inflated [or not inflated], latiseptate; valves each not veined or with obscure midvein, stellate-hairy [glabrous]; replum rounded; septum complete, (membranous); ovules 4-16 per ovary; stigma capitate, obscurely 2-lobed. Seeds biseriate, flattened [plump], margined [winged or not], lenticular or ovoid-lenticular [suborbicular]; seed coat (minutely reticulate), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. x = 8.

Sep ascending; pet white or sometimes yellow, deeply 2-lobed, gradually narrowed to the base; short filaments flanked on each side by a short semicircular gland; anthers oblong; ovary ellipsoid, with 2-6 ovules per locule; style elongate, persistent; fr elliptic or oval, flattened parallel to the septum, few-seeded; herbs with chiefly entire lvs, ±pubescent with stellate hairs. 5, temp. Eurasia.

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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