Description from Flora of China
Herbs biennial or perennial, with rhizomes or woody caudex, rarely annuals. Trichomes simple or absent. Stems erect, sometimes prostrate, angular. Basal leaves rosulate or not, lyrate-pinnatifid or pinnatisect, rarely undivided. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile, auriculate or amplexicaul, entire, dentate, pinnatifid, or pinnatisect. Racemes many flowered, often ebracteate; rachis striate. Fruitng pedicels slender or thickened, erect or divaricate. Sepals oblong or linear, erect or spreading, base of lateral pair saccate. Petals yellow, rarely creamy white; blade spatulate or oblanceolate, apex obtuse or rounded; claw obscurely differentiated. Stamens 6, tetradynamous; filaments not dilated at base; anthers oblong, obtuse at apex. Nectar glands 4, median pair toothlike; lateral pair annular. Ovules 10-40 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques, linear or rarely elliptic-linear, terete, 4-angled, or latiseptate, sessile or shortly stipitate; valves with a prominent midvein and distinct marginal veins, mostly glabrous, smooth or torulose; replum rounded; septum complete; style obsolete or to 5 mm; stigma capitate, entire or slightly 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate or subbiseriate, wingless, margined, or winged, oblong, ovoid, or orbicular, plump or slightly flattened; seed coat reticulate, rarely tuberculate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent.
About 22 species: mainly in SW Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America; five species (two endemic, one introduced) in China.