Herbs, small, perennial, dwarf, caespitose, branched from base; rootstock many-branched; stems erect, often scapose, glabrous or greyish-white tomentose or pilose with simple or 2-branched hairs. Leaves mostly radical, simple, linear-lanceolate or narrow-oblong, narrowed at base, sessile or subsessile, entire or faintly denticulate along margins, basal ones densely rosulate; cauline leaves usually absent, rarely 1 or 2. Racemes short or elongated, sometimes corymbose, many-flowered, ebracteate or rarely bracteate. Flowers small, pink, bluish or white or sometimes pale yellowish; pedicels erect, short, thickened in fruit. Sepals persistent, divergent, oblong, not pouched at base, tinged with purple, with hyaline margins. Petals obovate, cuneate at base, truncate at apex, exceeding sepals, white or purplish. Stamens 6; filaments free; anthers short, ovoid, obtuse at apex. Nectar glands small, pyramidal, on either side of the shorter stamens. Ovary sessile, oblong or subcylindrical, 4 - 20-ovuled; style very short; stigma depressed-capitate, shortly subbilobate. Fruit a siliqua or silicule, ovoid or subcylindric, glabrous; valves convex, 1-nerved; septum hyaline, entire, 1-veined with many stout parallel walls of the epidermal cells; style slender. Seeds 2-seriate, rarely 1-seriate, few to many, ovoid.
Chiefly in high alpine regions of Arctic, Europe, C. Asia and Sino-Himalayas; about
13 species, 3 in India.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Leaves absent or 1-leaves, narrowly linear, 1 - 2 mm broad; sepals 1.5 - 2 mm long; petals 2 - 2.5 mm long
