Recognize Cannabis sativa by its palmately compound leaves, with 5 to 9 narrow, sharply toothed leaflets radiating from one point, and by its upright, usually unbranched lower stem.
Plants are typically tall and slender, often several feet high, with opposite leaves low on the stem and alternate leaves higher up.
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Clear images work best. Avoid photos taken too close or too far away
Use these quick checks to identify Cannabis sativa by eye.
Check several leaves and the flower clusters together, since leaflet number can vary.
Cannabis sativa shows clear visual shifts from seedling leaves to flowering branch tips.
In spring and early summer, cannabis shows fresh palmate leaves, often with narrow, sharply toothed leaflets. As day length shortens, flower clusters become the clearest seasonal clue. By late summer into fall, male plants show loose, dangling pollen clusters, while female plants develop denser flower clusters with many pale hairlike stigmas. After flowering, the annual plant declines and dies back rather than persisting as bare woody stems through winter.
A few unrelated plants can be mistaken for cannabis at a glance.
kenaf(Hibiscus cannabinus)
Often confused because young leaves can be deeply lobed and palmate. Kenaf leaves are usually single lobed blades, not separate leaflets, and the plant later shows large hibiscus-type flowers.
cassava(Manihot esculenta)
Its leaves are also palmately divided, which can suggest Cannabis sativa from a distance. Cassava has smooth-edged lobes joined at the center, while cannabis has separate, sharply toothed leaflets.
Japanese maple(Acer palmatum)
Cutleaf forms can suggest the same hand-shaped outline. Maple leaves are single leaves with lobes attached to one blade, and they grow on woody twigs rather than green herbaceous stems.
Plant Photo ID
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Use Botan to compare a photo and help identify or confirm the plant before you label it incorrectly.
Photograph the whole plant, then clear close-ups of the leaves and flowers. For cannabis plant identification, include the leaf arrangement and leaflet count, plus flower clusters at the stem nodes and shoot tips.
Identify a plant from a photo with Botan, then review plant details, care information, and common problems for the matched species.
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