by Nebula Haze
Yellow flowers on your cannabis plants? Or did you find a lot of seeds in your buds after harvest? Unless you have a male plant in your grow room, seeds in your buds means you have a hermaphrodite plant (a “herm” or “hermie” plant). A herm is just a technical way to say that both male and female flowers grew on the same marijuana plant.
Example of male/herm cannabis flowers.
Curious what to look for? Herms can show themselves a few different ways, but here is a picture walkthrough of one specific example. In this case, the plant made some small yellow flowers (male flowers) at the bottom of branches that were hidden from view. Around these flowers, the grower found tons of seeds. That’s because all the male flowers released pollen, which pollinated the nearby buds and created seeds.
Cannabis Plant Just Before Harvest – The grower didn’t realize this Runtz plant (grown in this mini tent setup with a Spider Farmer 100W LED) was a herm yet.
The grower cut off the first branch to trim.
Wait…
What’s this yellow thing at the base of some fan leaves?
It looks bright yellow against the green buds.
In fact, it looks like a tiny yellow flower.
Although this seemed to be a female plant with female flowers (buds), these yellow flowers are actually male cannabis flowers. That means this is a herm plant because it has both male and female parts.
Closeup of a different male flower on the same plant.
Where there are male flowers, you often see seeds. That’s because male flowers produce pollen, which pollinate buds and cause seeds to grow.
Here’s a seed growing in the buds near the male flowers.
When pollen touches the hairs (or as a plant botanist would say, ‘when the pollen grain lands on the stigma of the pistil’) of a female bud, sperm cells travel down the hair to the base and begin forming a seed.
In this case, the hair that was pollinated is still attached to the seed. How neat!
Overall, the plant produced several seeds. Some of which were not fully formed.
The seeds in the back appear dark and healthy, which means they would likely germinate. The 3 small and pale seed in the front may or may not germinate. You’d have to plant them to see what happens.
What happens if I germinate these herm seeds?
These seeds will likely produce only female plants (since both of its “parents” were the same female plant). Without a “dad” in the mix, there will be no “sons”. So you could think of these herm seeds as “feminized” seeds.
However, since the parent was a herm, there is a relatively high likelihood that the resulting plants may herm as well. Some growers even do this on purpose. They find a plant with genetics like this one that tends to herm only a little, and only makes a few seeds at a time. Then they can keep growing the seeds whenever they want more weed. Ideally, they never have to buy seeds again since they always end up with extra seeds at the end.
One downside to planting herm seeds is it’s possible these genetics might herm even worse, and pollinate all the buds in your grow space. It’s also possible that the seeds might not herm at all. And the last surprise, as with any seeds from an unexpected cross, is the resulting plants may not grow the same way or the same kind of buds as the original. Since there are very inbred seeds (the parents are essentially twins from a genetic point of view), there can be other unexpected surprises in the resulting seeds such as mutations or strange growth patterns.
Read the full article: What happens if I grow seeds from a hermie plant?
Growing with unplanned seeds is always a mystery!
So should a grower be disappointed if they end up with a small herm like this? I don’t think so. A few seeds never hurt anybody.
Plus, the bud quality is still excellent! All the male flowers were at the bottom of the plant at the base of buds, and the top buds were unaffected.
All the top primo buds were unaffected. This ended up being wonderful weed to smoke!
I hope you enjoyed this profile of a herm cannabis plant! My goal is for you to fully understand what’s happening if you see this on your marijuana plants.
Have you had any experiences with herm plants? Send us pictures and we might feature you on GrowWeedEasy.com!
You might be interested in…
What happens if I grow seeds from a hermie plant?
Everything you need to know about herms, bananas, and pollen sacs!
The Continuous Garden by Max (Perpetual Cannabis Harvest) – In this guide, the grower included an interesting entry about his experience growing herm seeds.
Diagnose your sick cannabis plants!
