“I have marijuana plants that have 4 and 6-finger fan leaves and nowhere on the internet can I find one site that refers to even numbered fingers. No where. “ ~Reader
This cannabis leaf has 6 “fingers”, which is unusual as most cannabis leaves have an odd number of fingers. Why?
Quick answer: Why do some cannabis plants have an even number of points on leaves?
When a cannabis grower sees 4-point and 6-point leaves, they are typically caused by one of three things:
- Genetics – Some strains just grow an unusual number of points on leaves.
- Random Mutation – Sometimes a specific plant has a mutation that causes it to grow an unusual number of points on leaves, even though it’s not typical for the strain.
- Environmental Stress – General stress, unusual light schedules, unstable temperatures, and other environmental issues can trigger a “normal” plant to start producing leaves with a weird number of points per leaf.
Now let me show you a bunch of pictures so you can help determine what’s going on with your cannabis plant.
What is considered a “normal” number of points on a cannabis leaf?
Seven is the most common though it varies by strain. Seeing 5, 9, 11, or even 13 points isn’t that unusual. The most I’ve seen is 17 points on a single cannabis leaf (pictured below) Though typically an odd number, occasionally you’ll see leaves with an even number of points. Some plants may grow many leaves with an even number of points, often with the same pattern as each other. Your growing conditions affect this, too. Big, fast-growing plants in an ideal environment tend to grow leaves with more points.
Cannabis leaves most often have 7 points.
Yet there is a lot of variation between plants, and even on the same plant. This leaf that cannabis grower Michael sent has 17 points in total, though he explained that most leaves on the plant had 7, 9, or 11 points.
This cannabis leaf has 13 points if you count the two middle ones. Cannabis leaf variations are so cool.
Why do some cannabis plants grow an even number of points on leaves?
Natural Mutation
Often when you see just one or a few “weird” leaves, you’re seeing natural variation.
This cannabis plant can’t decide if it wants to have 6 or 7 points on this leaf. Some leaves are just funny like that.
Another common trait you may see is a plant that seems to “struggle” with making a specific point on many leaves. It’s like it got bad programming for leaf points that gives it a tendency to make an even number of leaves.
For example, this cannabis plant made several 6-point leaves. Here’s one. They were all missing a finger in the lower left bottom.
Here’s a leaf from the same cannabis plant. You can see the lower left point did appear, but it is malformed and partly connected to the finger next to it. Ultimately, this plant had a mutation that gave it a tendency to not correctly form that lower left point on its leaves. Otherwise, this plant was normal in every way and produced an excellent harvest. A little natural leaf variation never hurt anyone.
This cannabis also had lots of unusual leaves, including 4-finger leaves, and multiple leaves coming from a node. Click for a closeup to see better!
Other Genetic Reasons
Some strains grow an even number of points on leaves due to genetics, such as some Ducksfoot plants or just random mutations. If plants are otherwise healthy and grow an even number of points on leaves from seed to harvest, or if you only see a few random ones and the rest seem normal. you likely don’t need to worry.
“Ducksfoot” leaves typically have 3 points, but may show lots of 2 and 4-point leaves too. Here’s a “regular” Ducksfoot leaf.
If your cannabis plant is growing an even number of fingers on leaves from germination, likely the issue is just genetics and nothing to worry about. This plant produced many even-numbered leaves from germination, as well as 3 and 5-point leaves.
For example, this Ducksfoot plant grew many 3-finger leaves, which is typical of the Ducksfoot cannabis strain, but also many of the leaves had 2 or 4 fingers per leaf. This is 100% purely genetics.
Tri-Leaf Seedling Mutation
I’ve also noticed that when you have a “tri-leaf” cannabis seedling, or one that grows with 3 stems per node, it’s much more common to see “weird” leaves on one or all of the stems.
Example
When you get a “tri-leaf” seedling mutation, which causes cannabis plants to grow 3 stems per node instead of 2…
…It’s common that one or all of the stems grow cannabis leaves with a weird number of points. This mutation seems to kind of mess with a plant’s number of things. This tri-leaf plant made several 4-finger leaves as it grew out.
Another tri-leaf example
This cannabis seedling also started with 3 stems per node. However, one of the stems turned into a weird stem that grew unusual leaves, while the other two stems started developing normally with 2 stems per node again, and regular leaves.
Tri-leaf plant – left arrow shows “weird” stem with weir leaves, while right arrow shows where the two remaining stems started growing normally. In this case, I just cut off the weird stem and the plant was fine after that.
But what if you had a cannabis plant with “normal” leaves that starts growing 4 or 6-finger leaves? What does that mean?
When you have a plant that’s growing “normal” leaves with 7 or 9 points, and suddenly it starts growing fewer leaves, that is likely a sign of an environmental problem.
Here are examples of cannabis plant problems that can cause your plants to start growing fewer points per leaf.
- Light stress – One of the most common culprits, especially if there is a significant change in grow light type or light levels
- Unusual photoperiods – Such as when grow lights turn on and off at a new time, or the plant’s lighting schedule is otherwise changed. Sometimes you’ll see even-point leaves after switching to a 12/12 light schedule to initiate the flowering stage.
- Environmental stress – Extreme temperatures, stagnant air, underwatering, and other stresses can trigger the unhappy plant to grow even-point leaves
- Re-vegetating – If a plant starts making buds in the flowering stage and then switches back to the vegetative stage, it can cause leaves to grow with and even number of points. Learn more about re-vegging.
This cannabis plant was exposed to cold night temperatures plus overwatering, causing some light stress. One symptoms is some of the leaves only grew with 4-points.
It’s very common for cannabis plants to show 3-finger leaves in response to light stress or unusual light schedules, but 4-points isn’t unheard of.
When a cannabis plant “re-vegs” or returns back to the vegetative stage after it’s started flowering, it will create leaves with fewer than normal points (also rounded leaves).
Classic re-vegging causes single-point round leaves.
However, sometimes re-vegging makes other unusual leaf shapes, such as 4-point leaves. Here are two examples.
This re-vegging cannabis plant started growing 4-point leaves in some spots.
This revegging cannabis plant also started growing 4-point and unusual leaves.
