Plants caulescent, shrubby; stems about 50 cm tall, 4 cm in diamete,r, naked blow, simple. Leaves about 18, forming a dense rosette at the top of the stem, up to 55 cm long and 5.5 cm wide, drooping, lanceolate, pale glaucous gree, unspotted, lower surface convex, upper surface flat, tip long attenuate, curved, reaching the ground; margins narrowly whitish, cartilaginous, toothed; teeth about 1 mm long, 5-15 mm apart, straight or forardly hooked, white, sometimes brown-tipped; exudate yellowish, quickly changing to purplish brown. Inflorescence about 4 cm long, drooping, with 3(-5) spreadingle branches in the upper portion; peduncle flattened toward the base, arcuate and descending, with ovate-acuminate scarious bracts about 6 mm long subtending the branches,flowers concentrated in distal 10 cm of central axis, on the distal 5-7 cm of lateral branches; floral bracts 6-9 mm long,2.5-3 mm wide, triangular with attenuate tip, scarious, with 1(-3) dark veins; pedicels 15-22 mm long, spreading-ascending. Flowers nutant, dull orange-red with greenish yellow tips when young, becoming orange-red with darker tips at maturity; perianth 32-35 mm long, 7-7.5 mm wide across the ovary, then narrowing slightly befoe widening towards the mouth, tepals with sounded, slightly outcurved tips, the outer 3 free for 9-10 mm, with a hyaline margin, the inner 3 yellowish towards the top; filaments yellowish; anthers about 3 mm long, exserted about 2-3 mm, reddish brown with bright orange-red pollen; ovary about 5 mm long, 3 mm in diameter, ellipsoid, with whitish stylel stigma capitate, exserted 2-3 mm, maturing after the stamens.
Aloe nugalensis is known only from the type location in northeastern Somalia where a single population was seen on a gypsum hill at 650 m elevation. It was growing in open bushland with low shrubs of Acacia s.l. and Commiphora. The only flowering plants known were grown from seed in a greenhouse at Uppsala. It took 25 years for them to flower.