A tall shrub, sometimes dense and rounded but scrawny in poor soil or when grown with competition. The dark green phyllodes (flattened leaf-like stems which replace the true leaves as the main photosynthetic structure) are typically broad and sub-glossy. It is fairly distinctive relative to other indigenous wattles around Melbourne but it is readily mixed up with the naturalised Golden Wreath Wattle, Acacia saligna from Western Australia. The vigorous Golden Wreath wattle is common as a weed along suburban rail lines and similar in almost all respects except that the phyllodes are usually longer and widen evenly from the base to a point in the middle of the blade then evenly narrowing again to the tip. In Golden Wattle, phyllodes are usually oblanceolate (broadest at a point beyond the middle). A prominent gland on one edge of the phyllode is very close to the base in Acacia saligna but is distant from the base in Acacia pycnantha