Adults are on wing from April to May and from July to August in two generations.

Adults have been recorded feeding on flower nectar of various plants, including Vicia cracca, Salvia pratensis, Echium, Onobrychis, and Thymus.

The larvae feed on the flowers and fruit of Hypericum species.

Forewing olive brown; some pale horizontal streaks from base: orbicular stigma elongate, horizontal, narrow, pale-edged; reniform large, vertical, brown with white linear centre and outline; veins towards margin black, defined by pale olive and whitish, forming sharp wedge shaped markings separated by dark intervals, and produced as fine white pencils through the dark brown fringe; an interrupted pale outer fascia; hindwing black with a whitish outer fascia from costa to vein 2, crossed by black veins; cell lunule large, black: fringe white.

— Larva reddish greybrown; dorsal and subdorsal lines dark with oblique streaks between them; lateral lines pale-yellow with a reddish tinge along centre, with an elongate blackish mark on each segment above it; thoracic and anal plates brown; head yellowish-brown; on Hypericum.