The Crystallophlomis section (often referred to as Nivalid primulas) consists of plants with long, more or less narrow leaves, generally upright, usually with white or pale yellow farina underneath. Each plant may have several flower stems, with one, two or three whorls of flowers, pink, purple, white or cream. In winter they form robust resting buds at ground level, and in the wild these would be covered with snow for a long time. The long, occasionally hot summers and too-warm winters make some of these plants difficult to grow in Britain, but others are long-lived, good garden plants. This section has a subsection Maximowiczii, which we list as a separate group of plants.

Primula optata has been much confused with Primula limbata. Both have a distinctive broad band of farina (flour) along the under edge of each leaf, narrow when the leaves first emerge in spring, then broadening. The difference is that P. longipetiolata has a long petiole (the name says it all!) This leave stem is red, and about as long as the leaf blade, whereas in P. limbata the leaf tapers all the way to the base. Both have clusters of lovely soft purple (mauve) flowers on short stems. Plants soon form clumps of rosettes, and so far with us seem to be reasonably easy to keep.