The wingspan is 25–30 mm. The ground colour of the relatively pointed forewings is brown. There is a yellow-brown to yellow-white band running over the forewings, three median cross lines and a cream yellow marginal streak. The hindwings are white with a dark fringe. Adults are variable in colour and size.ab. pallida Lambill. is paler, the basal area little darkened, distal not darkened, the median band whitish, without a blue-grey spot distally to the cell.; ab. rectifasciaria Lambill. has the pale median area one-third broader than usual and not traversed by lines, the lines which bound it sharply marked. — ab. alpestris Neuburger, from the Tyrol, (at 3400 m) has the median area brown, the distal moderately darkened with no pale part and the hindwing also somewhat
browner; in ab. subbadiata Strand the median band is pale, narrow, interrupted in the middle, the posterior part sometimes broken up into spots. The Larva is elongate, cylindrical; head rounded, distinct, orange with a large black spot on side; body very variable in colour dorsally, green, purple or slaty grey, a dark spot on side of prothoracic leg, another dorsally on the 10th abdominal segment, dorsal tubercles white, lateral tubercles black.The rather stout pupa is dark glossy red-brown, the anal segment black, the cremaster short and thick.[1]
Adults are on wing from mid March to May in two generations.
The larvae feed on Rosa species. Larvae can be found from March to July. It overwinters as a pupa in loose soil.
↑Prout, L. B. (1912–16). Geometridae. In A. Seitz (ed.) The Macrolepidoptera of the World. The Palaearctic Geometridae, 4. 479 pp. Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart.pdf
