Editor's note: This article has been reviewed and updated for accuracy in 2026. For decades, cannabis growers almost always grow, for one thing, flowers! In the following article, I will discuss signs of identifying female cannabis plants as well as what you should do with your harvest of these flowers. If you are a first time grower it's probably best to order some feminized seeds from a reputable seed bank to minimize your odds of having male plants ruin your crop prematurely via pollination. Cannabis may either turn out male or female in sex or worst case turn out to be a hermaphrodite plant, meaning it has both male and female plant features. The early stages of identifying female plants might be looking at your plants and the difference in height and structure of the plant. Male plants tend to be tall and stretchy, whereas female plants are usually squatter in structure when going from the vegetative growth stage to the flowering stage. A cannabis plant goes into flower during the later summer months when the days are shorter and the nights longer. It's easy to spot a female during pre-flower, you will see the pistils that form the flower growing out o