Cannabis taxonomy is the classification of plants in the genus Cannabis within the family Cannabaceae. The taxonomy of the genus has been disputed since the eighteenth century and remains unresolved. Three principal treatments coexist in the modern literature: a monotypic concept in which the genus contains a single polymorphic species, Cannabis sativa L.; a two-species concept in which Cannabis indica Lam. is treated as a separate species; and a three-species concept in which a further species, Cannabis ruderalis Janisch., is also recognised.
The dispute is further compounded by a vernacular nomenclature, drawn from the late-twentieth-century drug trade, in which the labels "Sativa" and "Indica" came to be applied to plants in ways that do not correspond to the formal scientific epithets of the same names. McPartland and Guy described this divergence in 2017, after a survey of herbarium specimens and primary descriptions and showed that the vernacular and formal taxonomies refer to substantially different sets of plants. … read more →
