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A medium-size moth ( 3.0-3.2 cm wingspan). The forewings are dark rusty-brown, with a series of fine faint dark oblique lines, and with bright metallic rusty orange on the basal portion of the costa and along the lower median area. There is an oblique dull silver patch on the apex and a prominent two-part silver stigma, comprised of a large triangular spot followed by a smaller, separate satellite spot. Hindwings are dark brown with rust fringes. The antennae are simple, and both the sexes are similar. The similar P. contexta has been reported from Saskatchewan and should be watched for in eastern Alberta. It has paler hindwings, and the stigma is a single elongated spot constricted somewhat in the center.

In the Palearctic, it occurs from eastern Siberia to Fennoscandia, Great Britain and France. In North America, it ranges from Newfoundland and Labrador to central Alaska and the interior of British Columbia, south to Pennsylvania, Washington, northeastern California, and in the Rocky Mountains to Utah and Colorado. It is found throughout the wooded parts of Alberta, from the southern Foothills to Lake Athabasca, but appears to be absent from the wooded valleys of the Grasslands region.