Otholobium nitens is an upright, densely branched shrub of up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) high that is assigned to the Pea family.

This species is an endemic of the mountains between Ceres and Hottentots Holland in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

In 2017, Charles Stirton and A. Muthama Muasya considered it sufficiently different from its relatives, in particular O. mundianum, described it, and called it Otholobium nitens.

[2] The specific epithet (nitens) is a Latin word meaning "shining", referring to the shiny felty hairs that adorn the young stems of this species.

The leaf surface is shiny, and has many, both sunken and raised, somewhat translucent glands that turn reddish brown or blackish when dry.

At the tip the ovary extends into a forward sloping style that is thickened at the place where it curves upwards about 1.5 mm from its end.

[1] Otholobium nitens differs from O. mundianum by the characteristically numerous and variously-sized leaf glands, drying black (not sparse, more or less evenly sized glands that dry reddish orange), narrower, 3–3.5 (–11) mm wide leaflets (not 7–11 mm wide), mauve or bluish purple standard with deep purple nectar guide (not white standard with green nectar guide), the lowest tooth of the calyx with black hairs and 3 times wider than the other teeth (not white-haired and twice as wide other), and the wing petals twice as long as the keel petals (not wing petals only one third longer than keel petals).

It is restricted to the high mountains in the south Western Cape between the Kogelberg area and Ceres, where it does not face any threats.