Wings are translucent, veins are usually white. Upperside is gray-brown with no eyespots.
Females lay eggs on dead grass or sedge blades.
One brood in late July. Tundra, grassy alpine slopes, and subarctic bogs. In North America, high arctic tundra from Alaska east to Labrador. Isolated populations in the alpine Rocky Mountains south to southwest Colorado. Isolated population on Mt. Albert, Quebec.