Cannabis: an Example of Taxonomic Neglect

Abstract

Native apparently somewhere in central Asia, cannabis is at present one of the most widely disseminated cultivated plants. Cannabis as we know it has developed together with man as a multi-purpose economic plant; and, as a result of selection for desirable characteristics, it has become one of the most variable of cultivated plants. Due to the extraordinary plasticity and variability of cultivated cannabis, there can be no progress in unravelling the taxonomic complexities in the genus until the biology of the wild populations is investigated.