Plants much-branched shrublets,20-70 cm tall; branches densely appressed white pubescent. Leaves petiolate: petioles up to 100 long; stipules to 4 mm long; leaflets 3, oblanceolate to obovate, up to 15 mm long and 7 mm wide, both surfaces more or less thinly appressed pilose. Racemes about 2-7 cm long, with up to 10(-15) flowers, flowers wnot dense. Calyces 2-3.5 mm long, pubescent; banner petals bright yellow, with reddish veins, glabrous or with a few hairs over the midvein on the outer surfacek kkeels strongly rounded at about mid-length, 5.5-8(-9) mm long; beaks slightly incurved, not twisted. Pods up to 7 mm long and 4 mm wide, often mottled, white pilose; seeds 4-8.
Crotalaria dumosa grows in deciduous bushland and scrub, in sandy and rocky places at 90-1400 m elevation. It has been collected from N1-3, C1-2 and S1-2 regions of the Flora of Somalia and in Eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti, NOrthern Kenya, and Arabia.