If you google “sativa” or “indica”, you’ll find countless articles and infographics containing information similar to this:
“Sativa: plants with thin leaves, airy buds, and a longer flowering period. They usually have a higher THC content, and their effects include euphoria, sociability, energy, creativity, etc.”
“Indica: plants with broad leaves, dense buds, and shorter flowering periods. Recommended for nighttime use due to balanced THC and CBD content, with effects that include relaxation, stress relief, happiness, calmness, etc.”
Sometimes autoflowering plants are considered “ruderalis.”
It is common for people less familiar with these topics, when starting their cultivation or acquiring this plant, to base their decisions on these “colloquial” descriptions.
Let me briefly tell you the history of this plant’s classification and why I believe it’s important to start changing these terms and be more specific and precise when naming this versatile medicine and recommending it to other users.
(I suggest taking a look at the cannabis glossary and the references at the end of this article for better coherence while reading.)
Cannabis: "indica" or "sativa"? What does this naming indicate?
The Latin name Cannabis sativa was coined by Ermolao Barbaro, an Italian scholar, between 1480 and 1490, and published in 1516. Later, it was adopted by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in Species Plantarum, a publication considered the beginning of botanical nomenclature, with a description of specimens cultivated in Europe for fiber. In 1785, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck described a “second species of cannabis” (Cannabis indica) from samples collected in India, Southeast Asia, and South Africa. This plant had narrower leaflets, dense trichomes, little branching, and strong psychoactive effects.
Linnaeus had classified Cannabis as a monotypic genus (i.e., with only one species), but Lamarck broke with this idea by proposing the differentiation of “C. indica” and “C. sativa” species based on eight morphological characteristics: stems, branching habits (phyllotaxis), leaflets, flowers, and chemical profile.
Carl Linnaeus (left), considered the creator of the classification of living beings (taxonomy) through binomial nomenclature. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (right) formulated the first theory of evolution of life and named biology as a science. Source images: Wikipedia.
From then on, many botanists continued to describe the plant according to their affinity with Linnaeus’s or Lamarck’s schools, basing their classifications on morphology, geographic distribution, or phytochemical composition, but not on all three aspects combined.
Some Soviet botanists decided to study wild-type plants. A notable example is Nicolay Vavilov, who in 1922 coined the taxon C. sativa var. spontanea to define another smaller plant with characteristics similar to C. sativa but growing under wild conditions. In 1929, he described the wild plants in Afghanistan as C. indica var. kafiristanica, a small plant with multiple branches, short internodal spacing, and small leaves with ovate leaflets.
In 1971, Richard Evan Schultes traveled to Afghanistan and described the species C. indica as a plant with broad leaflets, densely branched, and with very dense inflorescences full of trichomes.
In 1976, Small and Cronquist published “A Practical and Natural Taxonomy for Cannabis,” which contains the most widely accepted botanical classification to date. They mentioned that characterizing Cannabis plants faced challenges due to their easy hybridization through anemophilous pollination (airborne) and the rapid reversion of domesticated plants to “wild” traits when returned to nature. By then, it was already difficult to identify “native plants” without any influence of domestication. They adopted Linnaeus’s classification of a single species, Cannabis sativa, based on these hybridization characteristics, as well as geography, history, and their own studies of cultivated plants. They identified phenotypes expressed by the plant, changes in phyllotaxis, and differences in photoperiod induction associated with collection sites. They proposed distinguishing subspecies into “indica” and “sativa” based on the THC content in the leaves. They supported this classification by separating two plant types according to their “intoxicating” properties or use for fiber, further distinguishing varieties by conserving “wild” traits.
For THC content (in dry weight), they set the limit arbitrarily at 0.3%, considering that, on average, about 2% of the dry weight of young leaves or soft parts of female flowering plants is composed of cannabinoids. The scientists acknowledged that the quantity of these secondary metabolites depends on multiple factors: genetics, the plant’s vegetative period and maturity at the time of analysis, and oxidative changes in cannabinoids after harvest.
Cannabis Achenes. (a) Wild plants with persistent perianth, small fruits with the distal tip where they attach to the bract. (b) Semi-wild plants with partial perianth and a distal tip with an attachment scar. (c) Domesticated plants with no perianth, revealing the reticulated pericarp protecting the seed and a rounded distal base. Source: Naraine, 2018.
To identify “wildness“, they considered that cultivated and wild plants coexist, leading to the appearance of “feral” individuals with traits of both plant types. Cannabis fits a “random” scenario for these feral individuals; domesticated and wild plants massively interbreed, altering native individuals to the extent that they are indistinguishable in their original distribution range.
Being one of the oldest crops cultivated by humans, Cannabis has undergone multiple domestication processes. It can also establish spontaneous populations anywhere it is introduced, forming feral biotypes. Additionally, Small himself, in 1973, categorized three chemotypes based on the THC-to-CBD ratio, later supported by studies in 1979 and 2003:
The popularity of the plant began to rise around this time. In 1980, confusion was cemented with Anderson’s famous illustration, where the plant labeled as “C. indica” was described by Schultes as having broad leaves and short stature, while “C. sativa” was depicted as having Linnaeus’s description: tall with narrow leaves
Anderson also illustrated a plant labeled “C. ruderalis” as being very short, with few branches and small leaves.
Anderson did not take chemical profiles into consideration. The growing fame of the plant as a psychoactive also led to the widespread cultivation of high-THC varieties (C. sativa subsp. indica) worldwide, with breeders differentiating varieties and adapting Anderson’s illustrations to common terms like “indica” and “sativa.”
Since then, various groups of scientists have attempted to distinguish these plants by their genetic and chemical profiles, as well as their morphological traits. This would allow users to estimate the levels of secondary metabolites simply by visual observation. The latest genetic study, conducted by McPartland in 2017 using DNA barcodes (genetic barcoding) from over 300 samples, confirmed the idea of a monotypic genus, Cannabis sativa, with two subspecies: sativa and indica. In 2019, the same researcher classified both domesticated and wild varieties of high-THC plants (Cannabis sativa subsp. indica).
In 2020, Jin and collaborators in Canada made an attempt to phenotypically identify the three chemotypes proposed by Small in 1973:
- Chemotype I (THC-dominant): Plants with broad leaflets, dark green color, compact buds, dense and resinous trichomes, and higher susceptibility to Botrytis cinerea.
- Chemotype II (Intermediate): Plants with medium-width leaflets, dark green color, moderately compact buds, fewer resinous trichomes, and resistance to B. cinerea.
- Chemotype III (CBD-dominant): Plants with thin leaflets, light green color, loose buds, dense and resinous trichomes, and resistance to B. cinerea.
Although this study provided significant insights, it must be replicated in other regions, under different conditions, and with other cultivars to draw robust conclusions.
Phenotypes of Three Chemotypes of Cannabis sativa subsp. indica. (A) Chemotype III – CBD Dominant. (B) Chemotype II – Intermediate, high CBD/THC. (C) Chemotype I – THC Dominant. Source: Jin et al., 2020.
What does all this about species and names have to do with my cannabis plants?
All Cannabis plants are Cannabis sativa. Essentially, this classification suggests that the genetics currently cultivated by enthusiasts and offered by major seed banks—aiming for high THC levels—all belong to the subspecies indica and likely fall within Chemotypes I and II. Hemp crops, on the other hand, belong to the subspecies sativa, variety sativa.
I agree that varieties, rather than having an appealing name, should inform consumers about the plant’s biochemical profile to better understand how it might interact with their bodies. Ethan Russo and other researchers proposed a more detailed classification in 2017 with “chemovars,” which describe one or two dominant cannabinoids and two to four dominant terpenes in the cultivar. This classification would align best with the “entourage effect.”
And you, what do you think about these classifications?
Bibliographic references.
Anderson, Loran C. 1980. Leaf variation among Cannabis species from a controlled garden. Botanical Museum Leaflets. Vol 18, No. 1.
Jin, D., Henry, P., Shan, J., Chen, J. 2021. Identification of phenotypic characteristics in three chemotype categories in the Genus Cannabis. HORTSCIENCE 56(4):481–490. 2021. https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI15607-20
Lewis, Mark. Russo, Ethan. Smith, Kevin. 2017. Pharmacological Foundations of Cannabis Chemovars. Planta Med 2018; 84(04): 225-233. DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-122240
Naraine, Steve G.U. 2018. Morphology of Cannabis sativa L achenes. Thesis for molecular master science. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.23664.94723
McPartland, John M.; Guy, Geoffrey W. . (2017). Models of Cannabis Taxonomy, Cultural Bias, and Conflicts between Scientific and Vernacular Names. The Botanical Review, (), –. doi:10.1007/s12229-017-9187-0
McPartland, John M. 2018. Cannabis Systematics at the levels of Family, Genus, and Species. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. Volume 3.1, 2018
DOI: 10.1089/can.2018.0039
McPartland, John M.; Hegman, William; Long, Tengwen . (2019). Cannabis in Asia: its center of origin and early cultivation, based on a synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, (), –. doi:10.1007/s00334-019-00731-8
Small, Ernest and Beckstead, H.D. 1973. Cannabinoid Phenotypes in Cannabis sativa. Nature Publishing Group. Vol. 245. September. (5421), 147–148. doi:10.1038/245147a0
Small, Ernest and Arthur Cronquist. (1976). A Practical and Natural Taxonomy for Cannabis. Taxon, 25(4), 405–435. doi:10.2307/1220524
Small, Ernest and McPartlad, John M. 2020. A classification of endangered high-THC cannabis (Cannabis sativa subsp. indica) domesticates and their wild relatives. PhytoKeys 144: 81–112 (2020) doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.144.4670
Yang, Mei-Qing; van Velzen, Robin; Bakker, Freek T.; Sattarian, Ali; Li, De-Zhu; Yi, Ting-Shuang . (2013). Molecular phylogenetics and character evolution of Cannabaceae. Taxon, 62(3), 473–485. doi:10.12705/623.9
History of Cannabis. Open resource. The University of Sydney. https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/medicinal-cannabis/history-of-cannabis.html#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20cannabis%20originated,father%20of%20Chinese%20medicine)%20pharmacopoeia.
