[3] It is a fast-growing,[4] spreading, scrambling or erect shrub that reaches 2–4 metres in height with multi-branched and arching stems and branches.

[6] Its bright yellow flowers, which are about 3 cm across, have five large petals and are foaled in leafy clumps at the tips of the branches.

[1] Senna pendula was introduced as a garden plant in Australia in 1957, where it was described in a Brisbane nursery catalogue as, "a useful shrub bearing masses of buttercup-shaped flowers in autumn and early winter".

Much sought for, gardeners had paid four shillings to purchase this plant during the mid 20th century.

[9][6] The S. p. glabrata variety has become naturalised, and is also an environmental weed, in eastern Australia in the coastal and sub-coastal regions of south-eastern Queensland and New South Wales, where it is found in watercourses, gardens, disturbed sites, wastelands, roadsides, closed forests, forest margins and urban bushland.