Annuals [perennials]; not scapose; usually glandular, rarely eglandular, glabrous or pubescent. Stems erect or decumbent, branched basally [and distally] (leafy or not). Leaves basal and sometimes cauline; petiolate; basal not rosulate [rosulate], blade margins sinuate-dentate, [pinnatifid, or pinnatisect, rarely entire]; cauline absent or shortly petiolate, blade (base not auriculate) margins often entire. Racemes (corymbose [or, rarely, flowers solitary on long pedicels from axils of rosettes], several-flowered), slightly or considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate, stout [slender] (nearly as thick as fruit). Flowers: sepals linear [ovate, or oblong]; petals usually purple or lavender [yellow], rarely white, (much longer than sepals), oblanceolate [broadly obovate or obcordate], claw strongly differentiated from blade, (apex obtuse [emarginate]); stamens strongly tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers narrowly oblong [linear], (apex obtuse); nectar glands (2 or 4), lateral, intrastaminal or each side of lateral stamen. Fruits sessile, segments 2, linear, slightly [strongly] torulose or submoniliform, terete; (segments breaking into 1-seeded units, lomentaceous with thick, corky, or woody wall); valves usually glandular, rarely eglandular; replum flattened, (persistent after segments fall off); septum becoming corky, splitting at middle; ovules 5–30 per ovary; (style beaklike); stigma conical, 2-lobed (lobes decurrent, strongly connivent). Seeds flattened, not winged, oblong; seed coat not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. x = 7.

Distribution

Introduced; Europe, Asia, n Africa.

Discussion

Species 11 (1 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Chorispora tenella