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A medium-sized moth (3.5-3.7 cm. ws), FW grey sometimes bluish tinted, median area darker, red-brown. The reniform and orbicular spots pale, the reniform with some dark filling in the lower half. A short, sharp black basal dash, and the claviform a black loop extending out from the AM line. HW grey brown, darker toward the margin and on veins, and a discal crescent The male has two large hair pencils on the base of the abdomen, and there is a sharp, thick spine on the sacculus. Antennae simple; sexes similar.

Treated by Holland and Forbes as a race of the Palearctic A. basilinea; more recently placed as a ssp. of the Paleartic A. sordens by Kononenko et al, 1989. Western material, including Canadian prairie specimens, have been treated as a separate ssp., A. s. cerivana, a slightly greyer form. Normal darker sordens is reported to reappear in southern BC. Rustic Shoulder Knot is the name used for nominate form in Europe.