What is this plant?

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by brantibrooks, Jun 27, 2009.

  1. brantibrooks

    brantibrooks Member

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    I was driving on a road and my wife stopped to take pictures in the corn field and I noticed a grove of these plants growing on the side of the road. There was an awful lot of it and most were well over 6 feet tall. It looks like marijuana but I didn't think marijuana grew on the side of the road. the road may not be heavily traveled but if I need to alert the police I want to make sure I am not wasting their time. Can anybody identify the plant from these 2 pictures?
     

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  2. tipularia

    tipularia Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Yep, looks like Cannabis
     
  3. togata57

    togata57 Generous Contributor 10 Years

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    Whoa dang! I think that the police will be plenty interested!
     
  4. brantibrooks

    brantibrooks Member

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    Thank you and I will be notifying the local police department.
     
  5. soccerdad

    soccerdad Active Member 10 Years

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    Surely you jest. The police are doubtless too busy burning the crops of the vile tobacco plant, the cause of so many deaths. to devote attention to such a useful plant as this one.
     
  6. Barbara Lloyd

    Barbara Lloyd Well-Known Member

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    Brantibrooks, Please let us know what the PD says about the plant. I was told that during WW2 the US lost its source of Hemp abroad for rope making. So the Government was paying Farmers to plant this stuff. It has since gone "Native" and pops up here and there all over the place. Of course it is not the refiined and heavily hybridized stuff that sells well now. It will be interesting to see what they say. barb
     
  7. Silver surfer

    Silver surfer Generous Contributor 10 Years

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  8. BJellyfish

    BJellyfish Member

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    U.S law is so stupid...wild Cannabis sativa has no use as a drug (the THC content is around 0.5%, whereas it is over 25% for drug hemp) and it's absolutely unsmokable.
    Wild Cannabis is also a very nourishing source of food for birds, and they're destroying it all without reason...
     
  9. JanR

    JanR Active Member

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    It could be hemp. They are trying to develop and industry for it here in Manitoba. I don't know how you would tell it apart from the marijuana variety.
     
  10. soccerdad

    soccerdad Active Member 10 Years

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    I was taught in school that the anti-marijuana movement was started by the cotton growers who were facing too much competition from hemp, the idea being that all hemp cultivation would be banned in the frenzy they created. Indeed, I understood that they either made, or at least financed, that memorable comedy "Reefer Madness". But then, I went to school in Alberta where neither the curriculum nor the teachers were totally reliable.
     
  11. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    I suppose the problem is distinguishing them - a hemp field would be the ideal place for a druggie to hide their drug plants.
     
  12. BJellyfish

    BJellyfish Member

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    Of course...in France the farmers who want to grow hemp need permits, and they can only grow a few selected varieties (low-THC). They also have a lot of controls.
    However, it would not be difficult to grow some high THC-level hemp in the middle of the field...
    In my area, they got some problems when they started planting hemp...a lot of farmers found their fields devastated because drug-addicts had thought they had found true smokable cannabis!
    I've heard they are now trying to genetically modify the plant, in order to distinguish more easily between industrial hemp and smokable hemp.
     
  13. Barbara Lloyd

    Barbara Lloyd Well-Known Member

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    Michael, that's exactly what they did in Hawaii. Growers would go into the center of a cane field, dig down to a lower planting level, and plant the cannabis. That way from the road the plant heights would be the same and less likely to be noticed. They finally went to air patrols to detect the difference.
    Soccerdad, you're right about the cotton growers. A garment made of hemp would last for years not so the cotton ones. Who ever heard of a suit made of cotton being handed down to a son. I don't think the US is being very smart about this whole thing. There are many things that can be made from hemp. We used to have a store in Old Mt Vernon called the "Hemp Shop" that sold only hemp products. It was truely amazing. barb
     

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