48 4 Mr. A. Christison on Cannabis indica. 
the drug have now been made. The expectations held out by him 
have not been so fully realized as one would be led to expect. . This 
can however be so far explained by a want of confidence or neglect 
on the part of some who have employed the drug, and the use of 
spurious or ill-prepared substances on the part of others. From the 
marked success of various experimenters, it is obvious that the plant 
does possess useful properties as a medicine: these will be pointed 
out in a future part of the paper. 
In Dr. Lindley’s ‘ Flora Medica,’ Cannabis sativa is placed im the 
natural order Urticacee, no allusion being made to the Cannabis in- 
dica, as he obviously considers the two to be identical. It is thus 
described :—Flowers dicecious, male flowers racemose ; calyx 5-parted, 
imbricated. Stamens 5. Anthers large and pendulous. Female 
flowers in spikes. Bract acuminate, rolled round the ovary in room 
of a calyx. Ovary roundish, with one pendulous ovule and two long 
filiform glandular stigmas. Achzenium ovate, one-seeded, embryo 
doubled up, with the radicle parallel with the plano-convex cotyle- 
dons, and separated from them by a small quantity of albumen. 
He also states that it is an annual, 3 feet high, covered all over 
with an extremely fine rough pubescence hardly visible to the naked 
eye. The stem erect, branched, bright green, angular. The leaves 
alternate or opposite on long weak petioles, digitate, scabrous, with 
linear lanceolate sharply serrated leaves, tapering into a long smooth 
entire point; stipules subulate. Clusters of flowers axillary, with 
subulate bracts; the males lax and drooping, branched and leafless 
at the base, the females. erect, simple, and leafy at the base. Male 
calyx downy ; female calyx covered with short brownish glands. 
Dr. Lindley now places this plant in the order Cannabinacee, 
separating it from the Urticacee, the latter havmg small flat stipules, 
limpid juice, a solid erect ovule, and a straight albuminous embryo ; 
the former having a solitary suspended ovule and a hooked exalbu- 
minous embryo. In the above description Dr. Royle agrees, who 
has seen the plant in India. 
Two species of Cannabis have been described by botanists, viz. 
C. sativa and C. indica: but repeated careful comparisons have failed 
to discover any material difference between them; the generally 
received opinion now being, that the same plant under the modifying 
influence of climate and cultivation puts on a variety of characters. 
This opinion has been fully borne out by the result of an experiment 
in the Botanic Garden, which it may be interesting to detail. 
A few seeds picked from fresh Gunjah were sown on the 17th of 
March 1849, as well as some seeds from decayed Gunjah : the latter 
never germinated, but the others appeared above ground in a few 
days ; in the course of a week they attained a height of 3 inches under 
glass. Three shoots were planted in the open air, while the remainder 
were kept in the hothouse. On August Ist those without had attained 
a height of 44 feet, and it was remarked that they had a peculiar 
strong minty odour. On the 1st October one of these was 94 feet 
high, with several strong woody stems and abundant foliage : flower- 
ing appeared to be commencing, but owing to advance of the season 
