Marihuanilla

Marihuanilla (Leonurus sibiricus) is a plant of the mint family (Lamiaceae), native to Northeast Asia and naturalised in Mexico. She is traditionally approached in the evening for emotional ease and gentle inner regulation. Despite her name, she has no botanical link with cannabis.

No. She is not cannabis. Marihuanilla is a Lamiaceae (mint family), with no botanical or chemical link to Cannabis sativa. She contains neither THC nor CBD and does not bind to cannabinoid receptors. The name "little marijuana" comes from the palmate shape of her leaves and her historical use as a smoking substitute.

Ethnobotanical sources describe her as more sedative than euphorising. Her temperament is subtle, gradual, grounded — an evening plant traditionally associated with a calmer emotional field and a heart that slows. Dale Pendell ranks her among soothing smoking plants rather than cannabis substitutes.

INFUSE offers her as a resin extract: a knife tip (the size of a grain of rice) to dissolve in 250 ml of a warm drink (~50-60 °C), stir until dissolved, drink slowly in the evening. The classic Chinese way used the dried leaf as an infusion — the same evening gesture, on another form of the plant.

Smoking the dried leaves is the historical Mexican way — on their own they give a harsh smoke, which tradition softened in a blend (mullein, damiana). INFUSE offers marihuanilla as a resin extract, meant to be dissolved in a warm drink rather than smoked.

Yes, formally. The plant has a uterotonic action that may stimulate contractions — she should never be used during pregnancy. It is precisely this property that made her a postpartum tonic in Chinese medicine, used only after birth and under supervision.

Yi Mu Cao (益母草) is the Chinese name of marihuanilla — it means "herb beneficial for the mother". She is one of the oldest documented feminine tonics, mentioned as early as the Book of Odes (Shi Jing, ~1000-500 BCE) then integrated into the classical Chinese pharmacopoeia.

Because a single plant carries three narratives according to the lands that receive her — beneficial mother in China (Yi Mu Cao), little marijuana in Mexico (marihuanilla), garden guardian in Slavic traditions. Same pharmacology, opposite imaginaries.

Damiana for affective warmth, mullein to soften a smoking blend, mugwort for dream memory, hawthorn for the emotional heart, passionflower for agitated evenings. These are evening companionships, soft and gradual.