Plants bushy herbs up tto 70 cm tall; stems densely white pubescent, the hairs more or less appressed. Leaves petiolate; petioles about20-40 mm long; stipules absent; leaflets 3, narrowly ellpitic to obovate, up to 45 mm long, 10-25 mm wide, lower surfaces appressed pubescen, upper surfaces thinly pubescent. Racemes long, with many flowers. Calyces 4-6 mm long, pubescent, lobe longer than the tubes, becoming somewhat reflexed; banner petals yellow, glabrous or outer surface puberulent over the midvein; keels rounded at about midlength, (6-)8-12 mm long; beaks incurved, not twisted. Pods up to 18-20 mm long, 4.5-5.5 mm wide, outer surfaces densely and shortly pubescent, inner surfaces packedwith long hairs; seeds (2-)8-12.
Crotalaria saltiana grows in deciduous bushland and semidesert scrubm often along wadis, at 35-1600 m. It has been collected in all regions of Somaliland and Somalia as used in the Flora of Somala and in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, and Arabia.