‘Chitrali’ is our name for an accession of a cannabis landrace cultivated in Yarkhun Valley in the high Hindu Kush for dry-sieved charas, seed for food, and bhang….
That’s ‘bhang’ in the sense of leaf and coarse seeded inflorescence….
For cannabis, Yarkhun Valley lies at the interface of southern Central Asia with South Asia. In and around this region, Central Asian types of cannabis (‘Indicas’ and their wild-type relatives) hybridize with South Asian types (‘Sativas’ and their wild-type relatives).
For more on this crucial and little-appreciated aspect of the geography and taxonomy of cannabis, see Indicas vs Sativas or Central Asian vs South Asian Cannabis.
In the Chitrali individual in the photo, broad leaflets with a very big Indica-type ratio combine with plenty of height. The plant is in France but would easily hit this height on good land in Yarkhun, which is at 36°N latitude and has a Mediterranean climate.
This is a c. 2007 photo by Mriko, who collected the seeds from which this plant grew in Yarkhun around 2006 or 2007.
Seeds from new accessions are available along with many other accessions direct from the Hindu Kush.
