BOTANTICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS VoL. 28, No. | 
Marcu 1980 
LEAF VARIATION AMONG CANNABIS SPECIES 
FROM A CONTROLLED GARDEN 
LoRAN C. ANDERSON’ 
The genus Cannabis has had a long association with man and 
contains considerable variation in growth form, achene size, and 
chemical content. The variation has taxonomically been 
variously interpreted. Some maintain the genus is polytypic with 
at least three species (Emboden, 1974; Schultes et al., 1974). 
Others (Small and Cronquist, 1976) believe that it is properly 
viewed as monotypic: i.e. limited to C. sativa L. They do, 
however, recognize several infraspecific varieties. 
Historical aspects and rationale for the different treatments are 
amply covered in these papers. 
My work on wood anatomy (Anderson, 1974) supported the 
polytypic generic concept. A controlled garden (2.6 acres) is 
maintained at the University of Mississippi by the School of 
Pharmacy for the National Institute on Drug Abuse where 
collections from throughout the world are propagated. In 1976, I 
visited the facility several times to obtain additional vouchered 
wood samples from plants grown in a uniform garden. While 
gathering the Cannabis samples, I became aware of differences in 
leaf morphology. Variation in garden-grown plants has already 
been noted by Quimby er a/. (1973), but they did not quantify 
their data. This report analyzes leaf form in Cannabis and 
compares the variation in relation to the alternative taxonomic 
treatments. 
METHODS AND MATERIALS 
Measurements were made from the largest leaf on each voucher 
specimen. Dimensional] data were taken from the central (longest) 
leaflet. Measurements as illustrated in Fig. | included leaflet 
‘Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida and 
Associate in Economic Plant Morphology in the Botanical Museum, Harvard University. 
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