Cannabis Provenance
Names, Catalogues and Source Records

Three concepts,
one clearer picture.

A name is a starting point

A familiar strain name can connect several accounts, but it does not automatically make them accounts of identical material. Sawler and colleagues found that strain names often failed to reflect meaningful genetic identity in the samples they studied. The result supports keeping names and sample identification separate.

That distinction does not make names useless. Names are how readers locate stories, archived descriptions and related profiles. Their value is as an entry point into those records, rather than a guarantee that every use of the name describes the same thing.

Different records answer different questions

A dated catalogue establishes what its publisher described at that time. A specimen label connects particular material with recorded context. A later recollection supplies an account from its author. These sources can contribute to a history without carrying equal weight for every claim.

For example, a company retrospective can explain how that company tells its own history. Attribution preserves its perspective. Rewriting the same account as an independently settled origin story removes information that the reader needs to assess it.

Publication is not necessarily origin

The earliest source located by an editor is not automatically the first appearance anywhere. Likewise, a publication date does not necessarily give the date when the described material originated. These are separate claims, and an archive may support one more clearly than the other.

A fictional example helps: a name appears in a catalogue from Year B, while the text says it was known in Year A. The document is direct evidence of publication in Year B and an attributed claim about Year A. Keeping both dates in their roles makes the account more precise.

A useful profile is traceable

A strong historical profile identifies the source, explains the nature of the record and avoids filling gaps with an invented family tree. The reader should be able to distinguish documented publication from reported ancestry and later interpretation.

This page therefore replaces a best-source ranking with a guide to evidence. It does not recommend sellers or rate seed suppliers. The useful comparison is between kinds of records and what they establish, not between businesses presented as winners and losers.

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