The initiation and growth of discontinuous precipitation (DP) at [011] symmetric tilt boundaries in Cu 0.75 wt% Be alloy bicrystals have been studied. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that precipitates tended to nucleate at a boundary in such a manner that their habit plane, {112} or {445} , with one of the adjoining grains lay as close as possible to the boundary. The habit plane with a low energy formed on both sides of the precipitates behind an initially migrating boundary, indicating the importance of the existence of the low-energy habit plane for the initial boundary migration. The incubation period to initiate DP and cell growth rate for a boundary show a good correlation with the energy of the boundary.A kinetic analysis of DP using the models of Turnbull and Petermann and Hornbogen has yielded boundary diffusion data. A higher-energy boundary has a higher diffusivity with a smaller activation energy.