[4] Philpott and Stewart Lindsay discovered this species at Flora River on the track to Mount Arthur tableland at an altitude of approximately 1000m.

[4][5] In 1928, in his book The Butterflies and Moths of New Zealand, George Hudson discussed the species as a synonym of Selidosema productata.

[6] Later in 1928 Philpott stated that the moth he described in 1926 was a separate species explaining that although both productata and fluminea were variable, fluminea could be distinguished from the former species by its shorter antennal pectinations and the difference in the male genitalia.

[7] Hudson accepted this and discussed and illustrated the species under the name S. fluminea in his 1939 publication A supplement to the butterflies and moths of New Zealand.

Antennae strongly bipectinated, five or six apical segments simple, stalk ochreous, pectinations fuscous.

Forewings triangular, costa moderately and evenly arched, apex obtuse, termen rounded, oblique; dark brownish-fuscous, olive-tinted and strigulated with ochreous; first line from 1⁄4 costa to 1⁄3 dorsum, prominent, curved or obtusely angulated at middle, white; posterior to the lower half of this line is a large ochreous patch, sometimes extending across to second line; second line forming a broad hardly-curved white band, more or less tinted, except on inner edge, with ochreous, and with some fuscous strigulation, inner edge very irregular, outer edge entire; subterminal line thin, irregularly dentate, more or less interrupted at middle, white; a series of linear black dots round termen: fringes ochreous mixed with fuscous.