Forewing ground colour brown to dark brown with a pattern of white dots and transverse lines.

The first instars make a rather broad, but inconspicuous, gallery at the underside of the leaf, which later on turns into a brownish blotch.
See also gracillariidae.net and bladmineerders.be.

A whitish silken cocoon on the underside of the leaf.

Most of the time, ten or more eggs are deposited together near the midrib of a leaf. The first instars each construct their initial mine in the same leaf. Later on, the leaf starts to contort and the tissue turns brownish. The free-living instars leave the mine and spin a downwards rolled leaf in which they still continue feeding together.
Pupation individually in a white cocoon which is spun on the underside of a leaf, most of the time dropping to the ground during autumn.
The adults are active at dusk and come to light.

The larvae feed on: Ligustrum, Fraxinus and Syringa. The species sometimes also mines planted bushes or trees, mainly of the family Caprifoliaceae, but in these cases, the development is not complete.

Parks, gardens, forest edges or clearings, also lonely growing Fraxinus trees.