sativa L. Ukrainian name – cannabis seed; popular names – hemp, monets, dergans.
The cannabis family is Cannabaceae.
For medicinal purposes, the fruits known as “hemp seed” are used.
Bred in Ukraine in Cherkasy, Poltava, Sumy, Nikolaev, a little – in the Dnepropetrovsk regions as a spinning and oil plant.
Almost throughout Ukraine, but much more often in the south and east, in weedy places, roadsides, forest belts, in parks, sparse forests, among shrubs, wild-growing hemp cannabis ruderalis Janish is found. It differs from cannabis in its smaller size (height up to 70-100 cm), narrower, whitish pubescent leaves below. In cannabis sowing within the flower bed of female flowers is hardly noticeable, only at the base of the ovary, in weed it covers the entire ovary in the form of a thin film that remains intact or torn on the fruit. The fruits of weed hemp are smaller in size with a well-defined marbled pattern and at the base with an articulation, which hemp does not have. Weed hemp fruits are not allowed for harvesting.
Hemp is a dioecious annual herbaceous plant with an upright stem, up to 200-300 cm high, covered with adpressed glandular hairs. The leaves are petiolate, opposite, at the top of the stem – alternate, palmately divided, coarsely serrated. Male specimens (short) have a paniculate inflorescence, the flowers are small with a green five-petal within the flower bed – they bloom earlier than the female ones. In female specimens (materka), the inflorescences are spicate, axillary; flowers with underdeveloped flowers within.
To obtain fiber, male cannabis plants are harvested at the end of their flowering. Seeds are collected from female specimens in the phase of waxy ripeness. The seed yield is 10-13 q/ha.
According to GF VII Art. 230 Cannabis fruits are round-ovoid, greenish-yellow in color, one-celled, one-seeded, non-cracking, naked. Fruit length within 5, diameter 3-4 mm.
The shell of the fruit is bivalve, thin, but rather hard, shiny. Whole fruits, odorless, crushed, should have a faint, not rancid odor. The taste of seeds without a shell is sweetish, oily.
According to GOST 9158-59, no more than (percent) is allowed in fruits: organic impurities – 1; damaged fruits – 1, mineral impurities – 1. Humidity of raw materials – not higher than 13%.
Packed in bags; store in a dry, well-ventilated area.
The fruits contain the glycoside cannabin, 30-35% fatty oil, 15-20% proteins, vitamin K, mucus (Hammerman, p. 90, 1948).
In medicine, it is used as a mucous and emollient.
Oil from hemp fruits is widely used in the food industry and for technical needs – for the preparation of drying oil, cake – the remains of the fruit after the oil is obtained – is fed to livestock.