From the apex area runs a blue-grey marginal band which continues on the hindwings usually in an attenuated form.

Forewing with brown basal patch and anterior half of median band, both wings with more or less well-defined bluish-smoky distal border.

guttata Huene the median band is reduced to a mere spot surrounding the discal dot.

fumosa Prout is an extreme aberration, not infrequent among the race plumbata, in which the ground-colour of the forewing is in part or wholly suffused with smoke-colour, sometimes so deeply as almost entirely to obliterate the markings.

— maritima Strand is given as a Norwegian race, smaller than the type, with the marginal band of the forewing black-grey, not or scarcely interrupted, etc.

from Dauria and Japan, is yellowish white, with the basal and costal patches light brown, the dark borders weak.

The distribution area extends through western and central Europe including the British Isles, and continues through the temperate zone of the Palearctic to the Russian Far East Siberia and Japan.