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Emma seal. Plain ring: nothing here sets a rib count, a spine length or a growth form the ring can mark.

Bridgesii

Emma

Well documented

Emma is a good illustration of how names go astray. Bob Baker put the name Emma on an unnamed around 2015, simply to label its for breeding, and says that was never shared. Meanwhile a different plant circulates widely under the same name, mostly through seed and seedlings from crosses, and its original source was forgotten. Growers also disagree over whether either plant is a pure bridgesii, pointing to convex and spine bases that do not fit the species.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

  • convex areoles
  • distinct notches
  • atypical spine bases

BridgesiiNamed clone: One original plant and every cutting taken from it, given a name by a grower.

Of the 13 things this page says, 1 names who reports it and 12 are marked as something we cannot confirm. Where a line is not settled, it says so underneath.

Added 23 Aug 2026

At a glance

Species

Not recorded

No botanical name on file. What the sources do say about its species is in the writing below.

Filed under Bridgesii

Parents

Not recorded

No source names a mother or a father for this one.

Origin

Bob Baker, around 2015, as a working label for tracking pollen.

no source says whether it is seed-grown or a cutting line

In the yard

Not in the yardAsk if you are after one

Family line

what the record holds

No source in this library records a confirmed cross for Emma, and no other entry here names it as a parent. What the record does hold is below.

That is the record, not an oversight: of the 749 names in this library, 693 have no recorded relation either. Most named clones were selected, cut and passed along without anyone writing down what they came out of. A parent goes in here when a source states it and never because a name looks like one — a wrong pedigree would travel further than a blank one, because pedigrees get copied.

If you know where it came from, tell us — a person reads everything before it appears.

The original plant's own parentage was forgotten long before it was named. It has been used as a parent in three bridgesii x bridgesii crosses, and seed lists carry crosses written as Emma x Brad and Emma x Bertha.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

The longer version

Species, as our sources record it: debated; associated with bridgesii, with features some growers read as ancestry or hybrid origin.Reported, but not confirmed.

Baker used it to make three bridgesii by bridgesii crosses, including possible crosses with the clones Brad or Bertha distributed through Misplant.Reported, but not confirmed.

Baker states the original mother plant was never shared with anyone.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Separately, a clone circulating as Emma is grown widely, often reaching people as seed or seedlings from Misplant crosses; the source of that mother plant was forgotten long ago.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

The original plant suffered a serious weather setback and was still recovering when the account was written.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Where the name comes from

Bob Baker put the name Emma on an unnamed bridgesii of their own around 2015, after it flowered, purely to label and track its pollen.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Character

A bar is drawn only where one of the lines below states it — never from the species, never from a photograph.

  • Not documented yet.

  • Not documented yet.

  • Not documented yet.

Ribs
Large convex areoles with distinct notches.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Large raised areoles with a notch above them are a common Trichocereus feature.
Spines
The bases do not have the rectangular shape growers expect on a pure bridgesii, which is part of why hybrid ancestry is suspected.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.
Notes
Growers have compared its features to T. knuthianus, T. puquiensis and certain hybrids, without agreement.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

What the sources say

Two different plants carry the name: the breeder's own labelled mother, which Baker says was never shared, and a separate clone circulating in the community.Reported, but not confirmed.The species is contested, with features variously read as bridgesii, macrogonus ancestry, or a hybrid.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Drawing of a bridgesii-type column: slim, with few ribs, areoles set widely apart and long needle spines.
A Bridgesii column, drawn. We don't grow this one, and we will not borrow anybody else's photograph of it.

Filed under the same family, Bridgesii. The better-documented ones come first.

Keep exploring

Cultivar histories in this hobby are passed between growers; where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a side.