Bridgesii
TBMB
Grown hereWell documentedThe short form of the Bolivian torch, and the one most often for sale, because a single can be taken without spoiling the plant.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Monstrose growth is a well-known and stable form in this genus, and offsets of it come true.
At a glance
Species
Parents
No source names a mother or a father for this one.
Origin
no source says whether it is seed-grown or a cutting line
In the yard
rooted · $120.00
Family line
No source in this library records a cross for TBMB. Nobody names a mother or a father for it, and no other entry here names it as a parent.
Where the name comes from
One grower's account names the short form "type B" alongside the long form's "type A".Reported, but not confirmed.
Character
Not documented yet.
- nearly smooth to heavily spined: this one leans towards heavily spined, read from the spines line below.
Not documented yet.
- Spines
- Strong enough to show even on a small plant, which is one of the ways this form is told from the long one.Reported, but not confirmed.
- Growth habit
- Pups of roughly six inches stack on and beside each other rather than climbing.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Short pups clumping at the base and alongside each other is an ordinary habit for this genus; nothing implausible.Segments can still reach about a foot, so length on its own does not make a plant the long form.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Segment length varies within any form, so size alone is a poor character for telling the two apart.The owner's plants show knobby segmented growth of no fixed shape, and take California full sun once they are used to it.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.
- Flowers
- One grower reports it has never flowered for them.Our sources take opposite positions on this, and it is not settled.
- Notes
- Tips finish in a simple slit rather than the long form's more contorted crown. One grower avoids four-inch pots for it, because the pups come out smaller.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.
What the sources say
The two records do not agree on how far a segment runs before it stops. One grower puts it at about a foot; the specialist reference has the pups reaching three to six inches and then starting a new one on top. Neither figure is averaged into the other here, and the gap matters because segment length is one of the things growers use to tell this form from the long one.Reported, but not confirmed.
Related names
Keep exploring
Cultivar histories in this hobby are passed between growers; where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a side.