PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Cannabis / Marijuana (subsp. indica)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Cannabis sativa — the species. This subspecies isn’t separately illustrated.
Cannabaceae family

Marijuana (subsp. indica) Cannabis sativa subsp. indica subspecies

Marijuana (subsp. indica) is an introduced annual herb, found in Hawaii.

More about this plant

Cannabis indica is an annual plant species in the family Cannabaceae indigenous to the Hindu Kush mountains of Southern Asia. The plant produces large amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), with total cannabinoid levels being much higher than observed in industrial hemp varieties. It is now widely grown in China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as southern and western Africa, and is cultivated for purposes including hashish in India. The high concentrations of THC or THCV provide euphoric effects making it popular for use for several purposes, not only simple pleasure but also clinical drug research, potential new drug research, and use in alternative medicine, among many others. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~7 caterpillar species

Cannabis supports ~7 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus for introduced plants — native genera typically support far more.

Recorded feeding on Cannabis in North America, including:

Agrotis gladiaria · Swordsman Dart Cydia delineana · leafroller moth Ephestia kuehniella · Mediterranean Flour Moth Grapholita delineana · Eurasian Hemp Moth Grapholita tristrigana · Three-Lined Grapholita Helicoverpa zea · Corn Earworm
+ 4 more species →
Loxostege sticticalis · snout moth Ostrinia nubilalis · snout moth Papaipema cataphracta · Burdock Borer Papaipema nebris · Stalk Borer
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (11) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…