Found growing wild: is this a pot plant? Or...?

I'm on an island near Vancouver Island, BC. Today while bushcrashing in the woods I came across this plant, which is not one I've seen before. What could it be?

Now, I know pretty much nothing about pot, and wouldn't know a pot plant if I were to come across one. But let's see: this plant does have sets of 5 serrated leaves, and it does look a bit like photos of some pot plant I found on the web tonight... but then again, a bit different.

What do you think? What is this plant?

 

Looks like Cannabis

 

Yup sure looks like it .. .. i would be carefull if there is anymore in the area .. stay away .. ya never know who is watching .. and protecting there crop..

if it is the only one around the it is more then likely that some people were out there haveining a lil relaxation and dropped a seed or two and it just grew on it's own ..

Marion

 

Gardening book sections in stores here often include multiple pot growing guides. I've seen many pictures of this plant, including some good close-ups. Definitely Cannabis, complete with "buds". I also spotted a solitary individual growing beside a road in a town near here once, sticking up very obviously among much lower weeds. Incredible that with all the people that would have been passing by the thing was still standing there, unmolested - right by a street sign at an intersection.

I called the town cops, the guy answering the phone was clearly more interested in checking me out than getting rid of the one plant: "How do you know what it is?" etc. etc. After I thought he had the location I excused myself and hung up.

 

Another source is bird seed. Someone I know here once planted some bird seed, asked me what the resulting plants were . . . Cannabis sativa.

 

Thanks for the warning, Marion.

 

Ha! So, has this led to more people planting birdseed?

 

Gosh, Ron B, I've never seen anything like that in our local bookstores! Your experience with the cop seems sadly typical.

 

Thanks for sharing your expertise and for your prompt reply, tipularia. Everybody seems to agree with you about the plant. (Wow. What one finds in the woods these days!)

 

Speakin' a' which...
Read this in my newspaper this a.m.:

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, California---
An entire section of this Sierra Nevada national park was closed to visitors yesterday while rangers helicoptered in to destroy a marijuana garden growing just a half mile from a crystal-filled cave popular with tourists.
Authorities said the garden's proximity to such a heavily trafficked tourist site was unusual and reflects a newfound boldness among growers, who are now planting marijuana near trails and access roads at an increasing number of parks.
"The real tragedy about this is that visitors won't have access to an attraction some have traveled hundreds of miles to see," said Adrienne Freeman, a spokeswoman for the park. "And what's worse, this pot has been growing next to a sensitive area where there are dozens of species at risk that are only in this park."
While the park is best known for its giant sequoia trees, the caves contain hundreds of unique species, at least a couple of dozen of which were discovered over the last few years.
Rangers were lowered on ropes from a helicopter yesterday into Yucca Creek Canyon to investigate at least four growing sites in the park. There, they found trash, propane tanks and miles of hose to irrigate pot plants, law-enforcement officials said.
About three-quarters of the marijuana had been harvested. Authorities said the value of the pot plants grown at the site was at least $20 million.
The raid marks the first time Sequoia National Park has closed a public exhibit for a drug bust.

 

We have elite rangers that rappell in to take out cannabis? Canadians bet you can't top that!

I've found that the cannabis cultvators seem to be among the most informed when it comes to the latest in horticultural practices. Search nearly any topic, especially topics related to plant nutrition, and you'll find cannabis growers debating best practices.

Ron were you hoping for a merit badge when you called in to report the ganja?

 

Ha! Only after "three-quarters of the marijuana had been harvested"!

 

Hey, togata57, that kind of stuff is happening in our region, too. From the Vancouver Sun: 300-plant outdoor grow-op busted in North Vancouver forest

Our cops bicycled and hiked up the mountain to the get the plants, though. I guess they think that getting lowered by helicopter is for wimp-cops. ;-)

 

Now I'm really wondering about the plants I found. There was no evidence of irrigation, or any other sort of plant care or organization. I'm wondering if the plants I found have naturalized.

 

Or those with lots more money!

Yeah...so how did the pot farmers get to their acreage? Somehow I doubt that they were lowered on ropes from helicopters...although, if you're talkin' 20 million bucks, I daresay that could be made to happen! Plenty of filthy lucre to be tossed about. (As Jean-Luc Picard was wont to say: 'Make it so!' Better yet, Yul Brynner, in The Ten Commandments: 'So let it be written---so let it be done!')

And just who DID discover/report this agricultural extravaganza? How did he, she, or they find it?

 

Check out post from June 27 (Plant ID forum) by brantibrooks, entitled "What is this plant?"
Nebraska, too!

Like with any plant enterprise, some are huge and some are not. Gabriolan, maybe this is just a plant casually placed for a single user's consumption: maybe the grower totes along his or her supplies and takes them away after use. Maybe it is the result of a tossed-away roach in which at least one of the seeds remained untoasted!

 

Interesting possibilities; thanks.

I didn't just see one plant - there were several in the tiny clearing I stumbled into, and more over there, and a few more over there. I'm guessing that I saw maybe 20 plants. They really do look like they've naturalized. Either they have, or the gardener is brilliant for making me think that.

 

Front page story in my newspaper today: Huge pot seizures in Meigs County (southern Ohio)!

 

I googled to find it, and came up with this article from the Columbus Dispatch: Hunting the evil weed. Is that the article you saw? Pretty amazing story.

I'm stunned at how much money and effort goes into hunting down and ripping up these plants. And am equally amazed at how much money and effort many growers are spending on these elaborate systems.

 

Why, yes, it is! I am still amazed that, within a few seconds, someone in BC can read an article from a Columbus, Ohio newspaper. Modern technology is a wonderment.

So much time, money, equipment, talent, skill being expended on both sides of this battle. If only everyone involved could do as Obi-Wan exhorts: Use your powers for good, not evil. If only the growers, instead of being sent to overcrowded jails, could use their skills to reforest, replant, re-green areas needing it (always plenty of those)---if only the police had less of this to track down and clean up, they would have more time to prevent crime elsewhere.

If only.

 

Given that there were a significant number of plants scattered through this clearing in the woods, I'd say you probably stumbled onto some amateur grower's "wild-crafting" patch, rather than a place where a few seeds happened to germinate from a discarded roach or something. And based on the leaf color and growth characteristics, as well as the part of the world where you found them, I'd guess that these plants derive from some hybrid strain involving Cannabis indica as the primary ancestor.

Most of the commercial strains in commerce these days -- there are hundreds available from web-order suppliers -- originate from crosses between C. indica and C. sativa. These are very similar species, but indica is a darker-leaved, more compact plant that is more tolerant of the weaker sun and the cooler, damper climate in northern latitudes of Europe and North America -- which is, by coincidence, where much or most modern breeding takes place. (Amsterdam, not surprisingly, is an important nexus for all this.)

The point of mixing sativa -- which prefers a hot, basking sort of environment -- with indica is that most pot aficionados prefer the "bell-like" clarity of the sativa high to the more physical, melt-into-the-sofa quality of a pure indica buzz. The goal of selecting for the best mix of these traits, desirable growth habit plus optimal mental effect, is a kind of Holy Grail of most modern pot breeding. As a rough tool for giving you some idea what you're getting, some vendors even provide an estimate of the relative percentages of sativa vs. indica in the parentage of a given strain. 80 percent indica is not uncommon.

There are other goals in breeding, of course: maximum potency, minimal odor, and a compact, branching, heavy-flowering growth habit -- all of which are of especial interest to indoor growers in urban or suburban situations. The plants in the photos show the kind of compact shape that suggests this sort of consideration was a goal in this particular strain -- you'd normally expect a more tall and lanky shape with plants growing in a woodland setting.

In Maine, where I live, marijuana has been estimated to be the state's 2nd-biggest cash crop -- amazing when you consider the sort of climate we've got. But such is the wonder of modern horticulture.

 

Wow, kaspian, thank you ever so much for your detailed answer. Your post is very informative and exceedingly helpful.

 

You're more than welcome. I've had to go back and correct the post, since I inadvertently wrote cannabis repeatedly instead of sativa, which is what I meant. Sorry!

 

Kaspian,

Good info, I had no idea. Thanks for keeping it real amidst the hypocrisy and propaganda.

 

>hipocrisy and propaganda<

What are you referring to? I'm not seeing it.