Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Rosales > Cannabaceae > Cannabis > Cannabis sativa

Cannabis sativa (Mary Jane; pot; hemp; grass; hashish; marijuana)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Cannabis sativa is an annual herbaceous plant in the Cannabis genus, a species of the Cannabaceae family. People have cultivated Cannabis sativa throughout recorded history as a source of industrial fibre, seed oil, food, recreation, religious and spiritual moods, and medicine. Each part of the plant is harvested differently, depending on the purpose of its use. The species was first classified by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
View Wikipedia Record: Cannabis sativa

Infraspecies

Cannabis sativa indica (marijuana)
Cannabis sativa sativa
Cannabis sativa var. asperrima
Cannabis sativa var. himalayensis
Cannabis sativa var. indica
Cannabis sativa var. ruderalis
Cannabis sativa var. sativa

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Dioecious
Hazards [1]  The plant is a narcotic; Its action is almost entirely on the higher nerve centres, it can produce an exhilarating intoxication with hallucinations and is a widely used street drug; It has also been widely used in the past by mystics and sages wanting to communicate with the higher forces of nature. The nature of its effect does depend much on the temperament of the individual; The use of cannabis is considered to be less harmful than alcohol or tobacco by many people, nevertheless its use has been banned in many countries of the world including most western countries, New Zealand and Australia.
Lifespan [1]  Annual
Pollinators [1]  Wind
Structure [2]  Herb
Usage [1]  A drying oil is obtained from the seed. It is used for lighting, soap making, paints, varnish etc; In the temperate zone, oil is produced from females which have been left to stand after the fibre-producing males have been harvested; A varnish is made from the pressed seeds; Seed is harvested from the female plants when most of it falls off when the plant is shaken. Best time of day to harvest seed is in early morning when fruits are turgid and conditions damp. As fruits dry out by mid-day, seed loss increases due to shattering. Usually stems are cut and the seeds shaken out over canvas sheets or beaten with sticks to extract the seeds; A fibre is obtained from the stem. It is strong and very durable; Male plants produce the best fibres and they are harvested when the plants turn brown and the flowers begin to open; When used for making paper the stems are harvested in the autumn and either retted or steamed until the fibres can be removed. The fibre is cooked for 2 hours or more with lye and then beaten in a ball mill or Hollander beater. The paper is off-white in colour; A good companion plant for cabbages and other brassicas, it repels the cabbage white butterfly;
Height [1]  8.2 feet (2.5 m)
Width [1]  31 inches (0.8 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Cannabis sativa

Protected Areas

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 3HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0