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TBMA seal. monstrose growth.

Bridgesii

TBMA

Grown hereWell documented

Also written as TBM-A, TBM, TBM D, TBM crested, TBM cristata, TBM variegated, Trichocereus bridgesii monstrose

This is the overview entry for the family: a long form and a short form that between them account for most plants in circulation, two further lettered from Sacred Succulents, plus and forms. The long form pups long and smooth to a closed tip; the short form pups stubby and bushy; the crested form grows in bumps and waves. The letters are the weak point - the wiki page says which letter means which form depends on where you are.Reported, but not confirmed.

  • long form
  • short form
  • crested
  • variegated
  • reverts flower

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

Of the 23 things this page says, 3 are things several independent sources agree on, 6 name who reports them and 14 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

Trichocereus bridgesii

syn. Echinopsis lageniformis

Filed under Bridgesii

Parents

Not recorded

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

Origin

One San Diego grower's account credits the naming of the long form as "type A" to the seed house Sacred Succulents.

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

In the yard

1 available now

cutting · $70.00

Family line

tap any name to visit it

This cultivar: TBMA. Children: TBMA × Yellabone, Hybrid family, TBMA is recorded as its seed parent — unconfirmed.

TBMAyou are hereChildTBMA × Yellabone

Every ring is that plant’s own seal, in its family’s colour — open one to keep going.

Each plant wears its own seal here, coloured by its family — so a cross shows which side brought what before you read a name. A dashed ring is a plant with no page here yet, and a wire is only ever drawn from a parent somebody wrote down. Children are worked out from the other entries rather than stored on this one, so recording a cross anywhere lights it up on both plants.

The line matters as much as the box. A dashed line is a cross we can report but cannot confirm. Every cross drawn here is at that weakest reading, which is the true state of this plant's record.

Drawn 3 generations each way. Everything our sources record for this plant is in the drawing; the family stops there, not the tree.

The longer version

Species, as our sources record it: bridgesii, monstrose.

Clone C and Clone D are both recorded as coming from Sacred Succulents.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

The wiki page warns that which letter refers to which form varies from place to place, so the lettering carries naming confusion with it.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Clones A and B are by far the most common, but the rarer forms spread more widely through the 2020s.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

The two records do not agree on how many lettered forms there are. The community wiki carries four plus crested and variegated ones; the specialist reference knows only two, and credits Backeberg's own writing as a claimed source for at least one of them. Neither count is picked here.Reported, but not confirmed.

Where the name comes from

One San Diego grower's account credits the naming of the long form as "type A" to the seed house Sacred Succulents.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.

Skin
Smooth and spineless down most of the column.
Spines
Usually none, with an occasional ordinary spine and, rarely, a yellow one.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Occasional spines, including an odd yellow one, on an otherwise spineless monstrose plant is well within normal variation.A spine near the growing tip is prized, because it lets the stand carry on upwards instead of stalling.Reported, but not confirmed.
Growth habit
Tall and comparatively straight, and it does not stack its pups the way the short form does.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. A form that pups long and smooth rather than stacking stubby offsets will read as taller and straighter; plausible growth habit.Segments run several feet, and the tips look more contorted than the short form's.Reported, but not confirmed.The owner's plants show the classic long shape, with knobby monstrose growth once rooted.
Notes
There are very few on a long column to from, which makes it slow to propagate.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Pups arise from areoles, so a column that goes smooth over most of its length simply offers few points to break from.It is also the harder of the two common forms to buy: both of our accounts of it say so, and the specialist reference adds that on the Australian market almost every plant offered is the short form.Reported, but not confirmed.Clone A, the long form, makes long pups that carry areoles over their first few inches before the surface turns smooth or lightly melted up to a closed tip.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Areoles fading out along a pup until the tip closes over is typical monstrose behaviour and matches the smooth surface described.Clone B, the short form, makes shorter, thicker pups that can build into a bush-like shape on a large plant.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Stubby, thick pupping that piles up into a bushy plant is normal for a monstrose Trichocereus; nothing here is out of range.The crested form grows very irregularly, full of bumps and waves with many small closed tips.Reported, but not confirmed.Reverted, flowering examples were found for the long and crested forms, but none were found for B, C or D. A variegated form also exists and is pictured on the wiki page.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

What the sources say

Growers do not agree that the long and short forms are two different clones; one account treats them as one clone grown in two different ways, and points out that length alone does not settle it.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.The lettering is not stable between regions, which the wiki page states outright and which our own notes echo in noting the same abbreviation used for two different things.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.Reverting and flowering is documented for two forms only, and the wiki page is careful to say the others simply were not found rather than that they cannot do it.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

TBMA growing in the yard
Our own plant, in the yard. 6 pictures of it on its collection page.

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.