Annuals, biennials, perennials, shrubs, or subshrubs; eglandular. Trichomes usually simple, rarely forked or dendritic [subdendritic], sometimes absent. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile; blade base auriculate or not, margins entire, dentate, or pinnately lobed. Racemes usually ebracteate, often elongated in fruit. Flowers usually actinomorphic, rarely zygomorphic; sepals erect, ascending, spreading, or reflexed, lateral pair saccate or not basally; petals white, yellow, orange, pink, lilac, lavender, purple, green, brown, or nearly black, claw present, often distinct; filaments unappendaged, not winged; pollen 3-colpate. Fruits usually siliques, rarely silicles, usually dehiscent, unsegmented, usually terete, 4-angled, or latiseptate; ovules 1–210[–numerous] per ovary; style obsolete, distinct, or absent; stigma usually entire or 2-lobed (subentire in Sibaropsis, Streptanthella). Seeds usually biseriate or uniseriate, rarely aseriate; cotyledons accumbent or incumbent.

Distribution

North America, Mexico, Central America, South America.

Discussion

Genera 27, species ca. 215 (14 genera, 105 species in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Caulanthus, Chlorocrambe, Coelophragmus, Dryopetalon, Hesperidanthus, Sibara, Sibaropsis, Stanleya, Streptanthella, Streptanthus, Thelypodiopsis, Thelypodium, Thysanocarpus, Warea