Pultenaea alea is an erect shrub with sparsely hairy stems. The leaves are linear, long and wide with stipules long at the base, the upper and lower surfaces a similar shade of green. The flowers are borne among leaves at the ends of the branchlets, and are long, each flower on a pedicel up to about long with linear to egg-shaped bracteoles long at the base of the sepals. The sepals are long. Flowering occurs from August to March and the fruit is an ovalpod long.