A pistil is the female part of a flower: the ovary holding the ovule, a short style, and stigmas that catch pollen. Each female cannabis flower has a single ovary inside its bract, topped by two long, hair-like stigmas. Strictly, the white or orange "hairs" growers see are the stigmas, not the whole pistil.
In practice
"Pistils" is how growers spot a female. The first paired white hairs at a node mark a pistillate pre-flower. In flower, masses of fresh white stigmas mean active growth; as flowers age the stigmas darken through orange, red or brown and curl back.
Pistil colour is a weak harvest guide. Stigmas also brown from heat, handling, low humidity or pollination, and cultivars differ. Trichome heads are the better clock.
Don't confuse with
- Stigma: the pollen-receiving tip, the hair itself.
- Bract: the sheath around the ovary, often miscalled the calyx.
- Stamen: the male organ (anther on a filament).
Myth check
"Harvest when 70-90% of pistils are brown" is a rough rule, not a reliable indicator (Grower practice). GenetixBay uses trichomes: a few clear, mostly cloudy, some amber, to taste. See trichome ripeness.
The sticky, hair-like tip of the female pistil that catches pollen; each cannabis female flower has two, white when fresh and darkening with age.In cannabis, the small leaf-like sheath (perigonal bract) that wraps each female flower's ovary and carries the densest capitate-stalked trichomes.The first individual flowers that form at stem nodes during late vegetative growth, letting a grower tell male from female before full flowering.Trichome heads are the bulbous resin-filled tops of capitate glandular trichomes, where cannabis makes and stores nearly all its cannabinoids and terpenes; they are the raw material of hash.Botanically, the sepals of a flower; in female cannabis a thin, reduced perianth on the ovary, though growers use the word for the resinous bract.The pollen-producing part of a stamen; in cannabis each male flower has five anthers that split to shed wind-blown pollen.A hair-like outgrowth of the plant's skin; in cannabis the glandular types make and store the resin holding cannabinoids and terpenes.A female flower with a pistil but no functional stamens; in cannabis, a bract-wrapped ovary topped by two stigmas.
