Plants spreading, often flat-topped, shrubs 0.3-3 m tall; young branchlets usually puberulent, sometimes tomentose. Stipular spines straight or almost so, 1-6 cm long on mature shoots. Leaves with 4-12 pairs of pinnae; leaflets 6-15(-22) pairs per pina, 0.75-3.5(-6) mm long, 0.5-1.5(-2.5) mm wide, ciliolate, lower surfaces often pubescent, lateral veins mostly invisible. Inflorescences pedunculate heads; peduncles up to 2 cm long, tomentose or densely pubescent, not glandular; involucels basal or in the lower half. Flowers white or reddish-white; calyces 1-2 mm long; corollas 2.5-3 mm long. Pods falcate to almost straight, thick and woody, ultimately dehsicent, 7-15(-20) cm long, 1.3-2.5 cm wide, brownish, longitudinally veined, puberulent to velvety, pubescent, or tomentellous; seeds blackish, ellipsoid to subglobose, 9-13 mm in diameter; areoles up tp 10 mm long and 4.5 mm wide.
Vachellia edgeworthii grows in acacia-Commiphora bushland, semi-desert scrub, and on sand dunes at 0-1130 m. It is known from all regions of Somaliland and Somalia as used in the Flora of Somalia and from Ethiopia, northeast Kenya, Socotra, and wouthwest Arabia.