By: Steve Elliott
Ever since I started writing about marijuana, every time I look for related images online I keep running across a pot leaf photo that just doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, it seems to be one of the most popular “marijuana” photos on the web, and, in fact, is the top result for a Google image search on the term “marijuana.” Annoyingly, it’s also the top image result for “marijuana leaf.”
But there’s something just wrong looking about that leaf, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why.
This photo — which Discovery Health says it sourced from Marijuana.com — seems to show what looks like a female cannabis flower coming out the base of a marijuana leaf, where the leaf blades meet the leaf stem.
Now, I know Marijuana.com isn’t known as the best place for accurate weed info. In fact, it’s covered with those maddening “fake marijuana” ads for “legal buds.” But are they really the source of this photo? I’ve not been able to find it on the site.
I’m not saying the photo is absolutely impossible, but I believe it’s just inaccurate — at least, I’ve never seen that happen. Have you? If so, do you have a photo?
Cannabis flowers, as all know, occur either at the very tips of stems, or right against the main stalk of the plant. This is true for both males and females. And while leaves often grow out of buds, buds don’t grow out of leaves — buds grow only out of stalks or stems.
This photo is all the more irritating because of its ubiquity. Seemingly no matter where one looks on the web, there it is, again and again, displaying its botanical unlikelihood as a supposedly representative picture of marijuana in article after article.
It seems to be a real favorite whenever a “mainstream” site is doing a “marijuana article” and looking for a royalty-free photo.
If the bud were down at the base of the leaf stem, rather than at the base of the leaf blades where they meet the stem, I would be more inclined to accept it as genuine. But since I’ve never seen a bud grow at this particular spot on a leaf, I’m skeptical.
There’s only the one photo, seemingly everywhere, showing this phenomenon. I’ve never been able to uncover another one like it.
Who took — or faked — this photo? Why does it depict a bud growing out the base of the topside of a leaf? And why is this inaccurate photo — or, at least, very atypical photo — the most popular marijuana photo on the Web?
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| Photo: Retro Tee Shirts |
| An actual marijuana leaf doesn’t have flowers at the base of the leaf blades, where they meet the stem. |
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| Photo: Weed Farmer |
| Cannabis flowers typically grow out of stalks and stems, not out of leaves.
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