This is a beautiful species, the head, pronotum and elytra are metallic purple. It superficially resembles Timarcha goettingensis, but whilst the femora and tibiae of Chrysolina sturmi are metallic purple, the tarsi are orange-brown.

The adults are found on Ground-ivy, especially on sunny banks. It prefers areas with calcareous soils.

The adults occur in every month from March until November when they hibernate.

This very local species is moderately widespread in England south of the Wash and Severn estuary but is scarce north of this. It is scarce in South Wales. Apparently, there are no records for Scotland, and according to Anderson et al. (1997) it is unrecorded in Ireland. Hyman (1992: 179) gave this species Notable B status. There are relatively few post-1970 10 km square records so that this species may be declining over parts of its range.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland, the Bloody Oaks Quarry record of 6th May 2013 is the first for Rutland, and as at the end of 2013 it had not been recorded from neighbouring Warwickshire.