Wild hemp is certainly very robust, and will grow all over the place unless weeded out, but the varieties used for drugs have been selectively bred for that purpose to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, so they may well be less robust.
Bay leaves grow on a shrub, ten to fourteen foot tall with plenty woody stems … yet no one would think twice if someone called it an herb …
How about this:
A weed is some of that crap out there that I have no use for …
An herb is some of that crap out there I do have a use for …
Although marijuana and hemp are nearly identical, they are IIRC different cultivars (like cabbage/Brussels sprouts). Hemp plants produce little if any psychoactive material vs commonly grown marijuana plants are less suitable for fiber production.
Hemp, planted by the early goverment in the hope of providing hemp for the navy, later grew wild around NSW.Aus. The farmers cleaned it all out in the (???) 60’s, because they didn’t like hippies coming up from the city into their farming districts.
I’m not sure that the difference was a clear as cabbage/sprouts at that time.
I’ve heard it said that the variety of varieties of marijuana is comparable to the varieties of apples … and for much the same reason … where ever humans go there’s a need for hard cider and bong hits …
I haven’t seen anything called a head shop in Oregon for a long time. I used to patronize the one in Ontario called The Red Eye Hut. We called it a head shop in the early 80s. Amazingly, it was still open for business last time I went through Ontario. This was a few years before legalization. My wife and I were driving to Idaho, and realized we’d brought some weed but nothing in which to smoke it. So we stopped by and bought a cheap glass pipe from them.
The Red Eye Hut was (?) a chain of head shops that unfortunately had stores in Idaho. A much more conservative state that Oregon. Those got raided in 2003. Not sure about what happened to all of them. There’s one still in Grant’s Pass that also sponsors concerts.
In Ontario (that’s in Oregon folks), there’s Old School Hand Blown Glass and Happy Hippy. Located via findheadshops.com. Note site name. Looking for the listings for Oregon alone I see 4 shops with “head” in the name.
Oregon, where the 60s never really ended.
OK, inevitable: what’s a shrub? Is that a botanical term (as well as a culinary one)?
Signed, the Knights
[QUOTE=Wikipedia entry for ‘shrub’]
In botany and ecology, a shrub is more specifically used to describe the particular physical structural or plant life-form of woody plants which are less than 8 metres (26 ft) high and usually have many stems arising at or near the base.
[/QUOTE]
Colloquially, anyone can of course use it to mean whatever they want, but generally it means something perrenial that’s smaller than a tree, but bigger than grass or annuals.
Well, we have the woody stems and branches … so what’s the difference between shrubs and trees … poking around the internet I’ll go ahead and say the distinction in arbitrary and subjective … I’m looking at a hazelnut tree right this second and it fits all the criteria for a shrub … shorter than 20 feet and branching out starting at ground level … although botany has such a term, it’s not always definitive of a species …
For example, we can say pumas have tawny colored fur, however we cannot say grey wolves have grey fur … in the first the color is pretty much definitive, in the second it’s not … we’ll need to look at other characteristics to identify wolves … another example is the hawthorns, some grow as trees, some grow as shrubs … so we need to look at the leaf and if we see a double irregular serration along the margins, we can bet the farm it’s a hawthorn …
I eat purslane quite often. Purslane and Lamb’s Quarters grow like crazy in my garden so I just let a few patches survive. Purslane has a slight lemony taste and a nice crunchy texture.
We still call it “weed,” even though it’s an herb. And yes, we still call it “the head shop.”
