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PL THE PLANT
Trichome heads are the bulbous tops of the glandular trichomes on cannabis flowers, where resin is made and stored; they turn from clear to cloudy to amber as the plant ripens. Almost everything active in cannabis is made in glands smaller than a grain of sand. Trichomes are the resin factories of the cannabis plant. They synthesise and store the cannabinoids and terpenes that give cannabis its effects and aroma, and reading them is how growers decide when to harvest.
What a trichome is
A trichome is a fine outgrowth of the plant surface. On cannabis flowers the important ones are glandular trichomes: a stalk topped by a bulbous head where a layer of secretory cells pumps out resin and holds it under a waxy cuticle.
The three glandular types
Bulbous trichomes are the smallest and dot the whole plant. Capitate-sessile trichomes are larger, with a head sitting flush on the surface. Capitate-stalked trichomes are the largest and most productive, standing on a visible stalk and covering mature flowers.
It is the capitate-stalked trichomes that produce most of the cannabinoids and terpenes people are after.
Reading maturity for harvest
Trichome heads change colour as the plant ripens, and growers watch them with a loupe or microscope to time the harvest.
Why this matters downstream
Because the actives live in the trichomes, every extraction and infusion method is really a way of separating trichomes, or the compounds inside them, from plant matter. Understanding them explains hash, kief, rosin and why gentle handling preserves potency.
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