N. ORD.—URTICACEE. 154 
Tribe.—CANNABINEA. 
GENUS.—CANNABIS,* TOURN. 
SEX. SYST.—DICGECIA PENTANDRIA. 
CANNABIS. 
HEMP. 
SYN.—CANNABIS SATIVA, LINN.; CANNABIS INDICA, LAM. 
COM. NAMES.—INDIAN HEMP; (FR.) CHANVRE; (GER.) HANF. 
A TINCTURE OF THE TOPS OF AMERICAN-GROWN CANNABIS SATIVA, LINN. 
Description.—This tall, roughish annual, usually grows from 3 to 10 feet 
high. Stem erect, striate, roughish, ligneous at the base, simple or sparingly 
branched ; zzzer dark tough and fibrous. Leaves digitately-compound, the lower 
opposite, the upper alternate ; /eaflets 3-5-7, linear-lanceolate, coarsely and sharply 
serrate, attenuate at both ends; finely scabrous, and dark-green above, pale and 
downy beneath; Ze¢oles long, slender, and scabrous; sépudes linear, acute. /n- 
florescence dicecious. Sterile flowers in axillary compound racemes, or panicles ; 
sepals 5, nearly separate, reflexed-spreading, nearly equal, oblong and downy; séa- 
mens 5, opposite the segments of the calyx; /aments short, drooping, not inflexed 
in the bud; anthers large, pendulous, 2-celled. Fertz/e flowers in axillary, spiked 
clusters, leafy below; flowers 1-bracted and sessile; calyx of a single, 5-veined, 
hirsute sepal, enlarging and cordate at the base, acute at the apex ; ovary 1-celled ; 
ovule single, erect, orthotropous; s¢y/e not evident; stigmas 2, elongated, hairy, 
protruding far beyond the perianth. rat a glandular achenium, enwrapped by 
the persistent sepal; fer?carf membranaceous, indehiscent, but easily separable 
by pressure into two valves. Seed ovoid, smooth, brown, and veiny ; eméryo simply 
curved; albumen slight, oleaginous. 
History and Habitat.—This native of the temperate portions of Asia—a plant 
of ancient cultivation—grows readily in this country, in waste places and culti- 
vated grounds, where the cleanings of bird cages have found their way. It 
thrives well,+ blossoming in July ssid August. 
The plant in its travels westward is supposed to‘ have reached Italy during 
the Roman period, from whence it has spread in all temperate regions of the 
globe. It does not seem to have been known to the ancient Egyptians as having 
* Kavvapits, Kannadis ; an Oriental name of gnknown meaning, probably, however, derived from the Arabian name 
of the plant ganed. 
¢ A thrifty female plant, nine feet high, grew last year in a farm-house yard near Binghamton; and several of both 
sexes, fully seven feet, at Union, N. Y.. 
