Herbs, annual, biennial or perennial, glabrous or hairy. Leaves entire, pinnatifid or pinnatisect, lower petiolate, upper sessile or subsessile. Racemes many-flowered, elongated in fruit. Flowers usually yellow; pedicels more or less thickened. Sepals erect. Petals 4, unguiculate with long claws, usually oblong-obovate. Stamens 6, free; filaments simple; anthers oblong or obtuse. Lateral nectar glands annular, quadrate or hexangular. Ovary linear-subcylindrical, sessile, many-ovuled; style short. Fruits linear-sabcylindrical, erect or spreading; valves 3-nerved, usually glabrous; septum hyaline. Seeds 1-seriate, many, ovoid; cotyledons incumbent.
Mostly temperate; about 70 species, 7 in India.
Literature.
KHOSHOO, T. (1967) Biosystematics of Sisymbrium irio complex XIII: Taxonomic considerations. Bull. Bot. Surv. India 9: 49 - 55, f. 1.