terminology in that period and partly because, in the 
same paragraph, Lamarck reports that the plant grows 
in the ‘‘Kast Indies’’. He undoubtedly meant ‘‘eastern 
India’’, where Sonnerat did collect, for it is known that 
Cannabis was introduced into what is now called ‘‘ East 
Indies’* much later. Sonnerat travelled between 1768 
and 1771 in Madagascar, India, Ceylon, the Philippines, 
Indonesia and China; he spent some time collecting in 
Pondicherry and southern India. 
Lamarck considered his Cannabis indica to be a species 
‘‘very distinct’’ from C. sativa. He reported it to be of 
a smaller stature, more profusely branched and provided 
with a much harder (woodier?), almost cylindrical stem. 
He further stated that the leaves are constantly alter- 
nate; the leaflets narrowly linear-lanceolate and very 
acuminate. The staminate plants have five or seven leaf- 
lets; whilst the pistillate plants are commonly three- 
foliolate, with the leaves near the summit being com- 
pletely simple. The pistillate flowers he described as 
having a pubescent calyx and long parallel styles. Because 
of its hard stem and thin cortex, this species, he main- 
tained, was not capable of furnishing fibres similar to 
those provided by Cannabis sativa. 'The odour of [a- 
marck’s species was, in his words, ‘‘strong and resembling 
somewhat that of tobacco”’. In a paragraph following 
the description of Cannabis indica, l.amarck pointed out 
that the principal virtue of this species lay in the strength 
of its narcotic properties. 
At first glance, a photograph of the specimen on which 
Lamarck based the name Cannabis indica does not show 
a significant difference from Linnaeus’ pistillate speci- 
men No. 1177.2. But when one studies the photograph 
and the actual specimen (preserved in Paris) critically 
and against a background of experience with material of 
Cannabis, the specimen appears to have been taken from 
, 851 | 
