With a matlike form of a thick, woody base covered in the dried remnants of previous seasons' herbage, Primula suffrutescens is a subshrub growing from a sturdy anchoring rhizome.

The green leaves occur in several rosettes on the woody base.

The hairless leaves are spoon-shaped with jagged, toothed tips and measure up to 3.5 centimetres long.

The showy inflorescence is an umbel of several flowers with tubular yellow throats and flat magenta corollas with five jagged or notch-tipped lobes.

It is endemic to California, where it grows in the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Ranges.