Larvae feed on Astelia flower-spikes and adults are on the wing in late December and January.

This species was first described by Alfred Philpott in 1918 using a specimen collected at Blue Cliff in Te Waewae Bay, Fiordland by C.C.

[4] In 1988 Dugdale placed this species within the family Plutellidae and this placement was agreed with by Robert Hoare in 2005.

Legs fuscous-grey, anterior pair darker, tarsi broadly annulated with white.

Forewings, costa strongly arched, apex rounded, termen subsinuate, little oblique, rounded beneath; shining cupreous; markings white; an irregularly-triangular basal patch on lower half of wing, its upper edge indented; a round spot beneath costa at 1⁄4; a chain of small spots from costa at 1⁄2 curving round to costa at 5⁄8; an inwardly-oblique series of two or three spots from costa at 7⁄8; a dot on costa before apex; a large triangular patch on dorsum before middle, its apex reaching to centre of wing and its base broadly bifid; a round spot on dorsum at 1⁄2, followed by a series of spots which curve round to tornus: cilia cupreous with white patches beneath apex and at tornus.

[4] Larvae feed on Astelia flower-spikes and adults are on the wing in December and January.