Some information about the flourishing and the uses of hemp

2009.06.28

The hemp (cannabis sativa) is an herbaceous plant of annual flourishing with a stalk erected on the climber. When mature, the size can vary from 50cm to 6m high. First, its growing is slow, until the plant reaches maturity, after forming pairs of leafs. When the plant ends forming between 7 and 12 pairs of leafs it is ready to flower and, since that happens, its growing goes faster, until the stretching of the stalk.

Hemp is a dioecious plant that forms unicellular flowers. The female is easy to see when compared to the male, lower; it flourishes like a week after and its cycle of life develops until the maturity of the seeds, while the male whiter when the pollination finishes. The male plants flourish seven days before and fertilize the females, which make a fruit with a seed that achieve maturity three or four weeks after fertilized.

Despite being dioecious, as we said, there are cultivations of monoecious hemp, created for the production of fiber. Those cultivations have more than a half of monoecious plants and the rest is constituted by female plants, with rare cases of males. In return, the plants psycho actives are dioecious and their number must be well-balanced between male and female plants.

The comprehension of the evolution of this plant, which utilization has happened in many ways, during human history, requires the consideration of the historical use it has. The origin of this plant is associated to the Himalaya region, but since ancient history it is cultivated for the utilization in religious rituals as well as daily consummation. It is believed that the utilization of its fibers in the fabrication of tissues has more than six million years.

The first reference written is from the Chinese in 28 before Christ, and it was about its medical proprieties. Also the Greek and the Romans have utilized the hemp fiber, but they have not known its psycho actives proprieties. In India, despite, the utilization of cannabis as a hallucinogen are explored since the Christian era.

In the conduct of the first centuries of this era, the use of cannabis has popularized as a drug by the Mediterranean and Africa. On the European continent its popularity has always been associated with the utilization of its fiber to the production of clothes, papers and the sails of the merchant boats, but since the XVII century it has been popularized as a drug. The cannabis comes to America with the settlers and from Africa with the slaves. Today it is possible to find a large domestic variety of cannabis sativa around the world.