Overview of the Hemp Plant – What are the Parts?

Hemp plants are a great source of CBD. However, hemp can be used for so many different things. Some people consider it to be a miracle plant due to the different uses each part contains. An overview of the hemp plant could help us understand that miracle a bit more.

Use an overview of the hemp plant to help yourself understand the importance of the plant in civilization. When people think of CBD, they often think of the marijuana plant. However, CBD comes from both hemp plants and marijuana plants. 

Hemp and marijuana are part of the same family of plants known as cannabis sativa. You can think of the hemp and marijuana plants like you would think of birds. For example, a pigeon is very different from an eagle, but both are birds. Hemp and marijuana are different, but they are both cannabis sativa plants.

They have similar chemical makeups, but they aren’t the same. One thing they have in common is CBD. Both plants have CBD cannabinoids; however, hemp has .3% or less THC. Our understanding of the plants is pretty well known, just not by the general public. 

There is nothing wrong with not being well-versed in the subtle differences between hemp and marijuana. However, you can learn about hemp by using a simple overview of the hemp plant. Why hemp specifically? Hemp is a plant that can be used in so many different ways. 

In fact, every part of the hemp plant can be processed to do something entirely different from the rest of the parts. Hemp truly is a miracle plant. Luckily, there are only four parts of the hemp plant; the seeds, the stalk, the leaves/flowers, and the roots. 

Overview of the Hemp Plant | The Seeds

The seeds are often found at the top of the hemp plant and can be used for a multitude of things in life. Hemp seeds hold a lot of the nutritional benefits of the hemp plant. In fact, athletes consider the seed to be a superfood and use it in protein powders. But there are more nutritional benefits to just the seeds alone. 

People can use the seeds as an active ingredient in soap, lotions, balms, shampoos, and even cosmetics. Nutritional benefits include omega 3 and omega 6, vitamin B and E, sodium, calcium, sulfur, iron, potassium, zinc, phosphorus, arginine, and gamma-linolenic. 

But nutritional benefits aren’t the only things the seeds are used for worldwide. In fact, hemp seeds are also used to make oil-based paints, inks, fuel, solvents, and varnishes. These benefits and uses are just from the seeds; there are still other parts of the hemp plant to explore.

The Leaves

An overview of the hemp plant can help us better understand where things come from using the plant. For example, PlantMD CBD products utilize CBD cannabinoids that are found in the leaves. There are more than 80 different compounds found in hemp leaves alone.

However, there is not much of each compound per leaf. You need to distill 50 pounds of hemp leaves just to create 1 ounce of hemp essential oil. However, CBD has so many different benefits that make it worth going through the effort and paying the cost. 

CBD has been shown to help with sleep, anxiety, depression, epilepsy, opioid addiction, and so many other ailments. The oil gets extracted by steam and then can be used to make foods like gummies, tinctures, creams, and supplements. 

The Stalks or Stems

The overview of the hemp plant can’t skip the stalks of the hemp plant. The stalk is made up of bast or fibers that are pulled from the plant and then used to create commercial items. You may have heard of stores that sell hemp paper, clothing, footwear, eyewear, belts, and so many other items. 

Those items are all made using the bast of the hemp plant stalk. Hemp is used to create these items, thanks to its durability. Hemp doesn’t act like cotton at all; it’s best to give an example to understand just how durable hemp bast can be for clothing. 

We all know about how cotton shirts can shrink, lose their shapes, and fade over time. Hemp clothing won’t do any of that at all. Hemp clothing keeps its shape, doesn’t shrink, and survives wash after wash after wash. The hemp stalk might be one of the more versatile parts of the plant just because of the many different uses we can get from the things we create using hemp.

Hemp Roots

We have used this overview of the hemp plant to learn a lot so far. However, there is still the root of the hemp plant. The roots have an enormous amount of health benefits. However, it is not healthy as in nutritional; instead, it is medicinal. Hemp root contains glycoside, which can help detoxify the body.

But more benefits come from other compounds and chemicals in the roots. In fact, hemp root has been used since ancient China. We have discovered more than 50,000 different uses for the roots in that time, and there are still more to be discovered.

Some of the more common uses we have include relief of cramps, arthritis, hemorrhoids, digestive problems, joint pain, burns, eczema, gout, and even minor cuts or scrapes. There are so many reasons to study hemp roots for medicinal purposes since it has proven to be effective over centuries.

You can unlock some of these benefits at home by using PlantMD products, which use CBD from hemp plants grown in the USA.