Strain Lineage Explorer
Search any strain to see what it’s bred from and what’s been bred from it. Click a parent or child card to jump straight to that strain’s own family tree.
How strain genetics work
Landrace strains
Landraces are the original, regionally-evolved cannabis populations — Afghani, Thai, Durban Poison and similar — that grew wild or were locally cultivated for generations before modern breeding. Nearly every hybrid traces back to one or more of these somewhere in its family tree.
Hybrids and crosses
A hybrid is created by crossing two (or occasionally three) parent strains to combine their traits — potency, flavor, growth pattern, effect. Most strains you’ll recognize today are several generations removed from the original landraces.
Phenotypes and cuts
Sometimes a “new” strain is really a specific phenotype or clone of an existing one — a genetically identical cutting selected for standout traits. These are shown here as direct descendants since they share the parent’s core genetics.
Common questions
Not always. The same strain name can refer to genetically different plants depending on which breeder or dispensary sold it, especially for older or more mythologized strains like OG Kush. Naming in cannabis has historically been informal, so treat strain names as a loose category rather than a guaranteed genetic identity.
A landrace is a strain that developed naturally in a specific region over a long period, adapted to that local climate, without deliberate crossbreeding. A hybrid is the deliberate result of breeding two or more strains together to combine specific traits.
For most of cannabis history, breeding happened underground due to prohibition, so there was no formal record-keeping the way there is for, say, wine grapes or livestock. Lineage claims often came from breeders themselves, word of mouth, or marketing — which is why the same strain sometimes has two or three competing origin stories.
It influences it, but doesn’t fully determine it. Growing conditions, curing, and individual plant phenotype variation all affect the final product, which is why two people can have very different experiences with the same strain name.
Historically, indica and sativa referred to distinct plant species from different regions, which is part of why landrace lineage matters. Modern strains are almost all hybrids of both, so the indica/sativa label today is more of a loose descriptor of growth style than a strict genetic category.