Forewing greyish brown, broadly white at the base and along the hind margin, with prediscal dark brown and black double band; at the apex a large oval yellow patch reaching down to vein 4, proximally bordered by a dark red-brown semicircle, and traversed below the apex by a broad dentate dull ochreous submarginal spot; the black postdiscal band semicircular in the costal half, parallel with the dark border of the apical patch, and then dentate, accompanied on the outer side by a dark brown line; discal spot whitish; the scaling with a strong silky gloss, excepting the apical patch.

On the underside both wings have a prominent black-brown discal band, forewing moreover with a black-browia marginal line.

In Central Europe abundant everywhere in May and June, a second brood in July and August appears regularly only in the South.

In addition, the discal spot is more prominent and the apical patch larger, in which characters this form approaches the next species, bucephaloides.

(47 d)[now subspecies P. b. infulgens Graeser, 1888], which is common in the Amur and Ussuri districts, the whole forewing is uniformly whitish grey without gloss, the anterior half being hardly darker than the hind margin; thehindwing is somewhat narrower.

Historically, the buff-tip moth has been referred to as a pest due to their tendency to feast upon apple trees in Lithuania during the 1900s.