The forewings are dark brown with a broad, pale subterminal band, wider and paler towards the costa.

In the British Isles this species flies at night in June and July, with a second generation sometimes emerging in September.

It is found throughout Europe, in Algeria, in western Asia and through the Palearctic to Siberia, China, and Japan.

Forewing rufous ochreous tinged with purplish and mixed with olive brown; median area, a triangular blotch on inner margin near base, and a narrow praesubmarginal cloud deep olive; costa to beyond middle, the terminal area, and the orbicular stigma leaden purple; lines indistinct, the outer and inner approximating on inner margin; claviform stigma olive, dark edged; orbicular roundish, oblique, with paler ring; reniform conspicuously whitish, containing a double brown lunule; submarginal line pale, waved; veins towards termen dotted dark and pale; hindwing ochreous with dark cell mark and veins, darker in terminal half where there is visible a dark pale-edged outer and submarginal line.

Other recorded food plants include birch, false bindweed, dogwood, larkspur, willowherb, ash, ivy, lettuce, privet, loosestrife, oak, buttercup, currant, raspberry, willow, tomato, coltsfoot, nettle, and guelder rose.