The abdomen extends well beyond the hindwings and has a conspicuous black tuft apically that arises from the valves of the genitalia.

The wings are a uniform dark brown above, sometimes grade slightly paler at the margin, but rarely with the blue irroration of the typical mainland Asian race.

The females are more typical of the genus in facies, with the strongly looped postmedial much more clearly delineated on the forewing, and with conspicuous, more or less straight submarginals that delimit a paler marginal zone.

There is some variation, with uniform brown forms, and more variegated ones with extensive ochreous areas marginally and between the antemedial and submarginal on the forewing.

[1] On the basis of concordance of geography and altitude range, and a comparable sexual dimorphism in the Sulawesi representative of the group, the original suggestion by Willie Horace Thomas Tams (1924) and Joseph de Joannis (1929) that the taxon P. umbrina rufiscripta is based on the female of P. umbrina is considered correct.