Plants shrubs or climbers, 0.2-3 m tall; young branches pubescent. Laves alternate, petiolate; petioles uo to 1.5 mm long; blades usuallyspathulate or oblanceolate, rarely elliptic, 2-15(022) mm long, 1.5-6.5 mm wide,green to pale green, lateral veins indistinct, glabrescent or with scattered hairs, sometimes appressed pubescent when young, bases cuneate, tips rounded to acute and apiculate. Inflorescences of 1-4 flowers together. Staminate flowers pedicellate; pedicels 1-1.5 mm long, with 2 filiform bractioles near the middle or towards the base; sepals 5, outer 3 ovate, 1-2.5 mm long, about 1 mm wide, inner 2 elliptic, 1-2.5 mm long, 0.6-1 mm wide; corollas 5-8 mm long, 5-lobed, tubes 2-5 mm long; stamens 5. Pistillate flowers pedicellate; pedicels 3-5(-8) mm long; sepals 5, pubescent to puberulous outside, 3 outer sepals ovate, 2.5-4(-6) mm long, 2.5-4(-5) mm wide, 2 inner elliptic, about 1 mm long and wide, sometimes 1 of them enlarging to 3-4 mm long and 1.5-2.7 mm wide in fruit; corollas 4-6 mm long, 5-lobed, tubes 2-3 mm long; staminodes5, without anthers. Fruiting calyces with 3 outer segments broadly elliptic, (8-)13-16 mm long, (7-)11-13.5 mm wide, glabrous or almost os, fused to the pedicels for 3-5 mm, 2 innter segments elliptic, 1-2 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide; capsules 3-4 mm long; seeds about 2 mm long and wide, orange to brown.
Hildebrandtia somalensis grows in Acacia-Commiphora bushalnd, mostly on rockyground, at 160-1670 m. It is known from regions N1-3, C1-2, and S1 in the Flora of Somalia and from Ethiopia and Kenya.