are somewhat dense; subtendingfloral leaves have an abundant covering of sessile
glandular trichomes; perigonal bracts express a moderate density of CSG trichomes.
The styles and stigmas are prominent, agglutinized, and light brown in color.
Lamarck listed six synonyms:Cannabi similis exoticaBauhin (who cited da
Orta and Acosta in Goa, India);Kalengi-cansjavaandTsjeru-cansjavaRheede
(plants from Kochi, India); Cannabis peregrina gemmis fructuum longioribus
Morison (who cited Bauhin and Rheede);C. indicaRumph (plants from Indonesia);
andDakka ou BanguaPrévost (who cited Kolb in South Africa). In summary,
Lamarck delimitedC. indicato plants from southern India and their descendants in
Indonesia and South Africa.
4.4 The Slide from Formal to Vernacular
How did the species namesC. sativaandC. indica reappear inaccurately as
“Sativa”and“Indica”? We traced a path through Afghanistan by Nikolai Ivanovich
Vavilov and Richard Evans Schultes. Vavilov traveled there in 1924, where he
encountered Afghani farmers who cultivatedCannabisforgashisha(hashīsh). He
assigned these plants toC. sativa(Vavilov and Bukinich 1929 ). This departed from
Linnaeus’s concept of C. sativaas a Europeanfiber-type plant. Vavilov also
encountered wild-type and feral plants, which he named, respectively,C. indica
var.kafiristanica andC. indicaf.afghanica.His student Tatiana Yakovlevna
Serebriakova assigned Afghani plants toC. sativa, and Indian plants toC. indica
(Serebriakova and Sizov 1940 ).
Schultes travelled to Afghanistan in 1971. Schultes et al. ( 1974 ) narrowly typ-
ifiedC. indicato plants in Afghanistan, with broad, oblanceolate leaflets, densely
branched, with very dense inflorescences, more or less conical in shape, and very
short (<1.3 m). This departed from the original taxonomic concept of Lamarck,
who was entirely unfamiliar with AfghaniCannabis.Lamarck’sindicadesignates
Cannabisfrom India—relatively tall, laxly branched, with narrow leaflets.
Anderson ( 1980 ) echoed Schultes and assigned Afghani plants toC. indica—
short, conical, densely branched, with broad leaflets. He assigned plants from India
toC. sativa—relatively tall, laxly branched, with narrow leaflets—plants that
Lamarck would have calledC. indica. Anderson illustrated these concepts in a line
drawing (Fig.4.2) that now appears everywhere on the internet.
Clarke ( 1981 ) referred to plants from Afghanistan “as type examples for
Cannabis indica.”Cherniak ( 1982 ) assigned“cannabis sativa”to plants of South
Asian heritage (Nepal, Burma, Thailand), and their descendants in Columbia,
Jamaica, and Mexico. He applied the name“cannabis indica”to plants from
Afghanistan. His classification gets a bit muddled, because he also categorizes
plants from India as“cannabis indica.”The earliest consistent use of“Sativa”and
“Indica”appears in a Dutch seed catalog (Watson 1985 ).
104 J.M. McPartland