It is an erect, bushy shrub or tree with narrowly linear phyllodes, racemes of spherical bright golden flowers, and leathery pods.

Acacia adunca is a bushy shrub or tree that typically grows up to a height of 6 m (20 ft), 3 m (9.8 ft) wide and has thin, dark reddish, glabrous branchlets.

[2][3][4][5] Acacia adunca was first formally described in 1832 by George Don in A General History of Dichlamydous Plants from an unpublished description by Allan Cunningham.

[6][7] The specific epithet (adunca) means "bent forward" or "hooked".

[8] Wallangarra wattle grows in forest, woodland and shrubland at higher altitudes, from the Amiens State Forest near Stanthorpe in south-eastern Queensland to the Bolivia Range in north-eastern New South Wales.