Jordan is an autodidact. Beyond cannabis growing, he also taught himself motorcycle repair, garment production, battle-ax construction and year-round permaculture \u2014 all useful skills when you live off-grid somewhere in rural California near Yosemite National Park, as Jordan has done for 39 years. Through his self-driven study of cannabis growing, Jordan had seen hints of what the cannabis plant could do. And it was much, much more than everyone else involved with the plant seemed to know or care about. He\u2019d seen the freaks and the weirdos \u2014 like the \u201cdwarf plants\u201d no more than three feet tall at maturity, or the plants producing buds on the petioles \u2014 and he\u2019d seen what happened to them, discarded, weeded out in favor of something predictable.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just want something that\u2019s huge and looks good,\u201d Jordan explained to Cannabis Now<\/em> via telephone.<\/p>\n Judging cannabis based on expedient looks \u2014 bag appeal, or grow-room appeal, whatever you call it \u2014 \u201cis such a mistake,\u201d he says. And yet, because of market pressures or because of prohibition, predictability became de rigueur.<\/p>\n With legalization looming six years ago, it also seemed there wasn\u2019t much room for weird in the cannabis industry. Just more homogeneity, more conformity. Companies touted themselves as \u201cthe Apple Store of weed,\u201d the \u201cUber for cannabis.\u201d That meant, maybe, as a grower who\u2019d never done more than \u201cmedical cannabis patient numbers,\u201d there wasn\u2019t much room for him. Considering that he\u2019s a lifelong lover of sativas<\/a> and other narrow-leafed tropical-bred cannabis plants working in an era that prized Afghan-ized broad-leafed indicas, maybe that was always the way.<\/p>\n Doubts, boredom and a looming exit were the shadows flickering on the wall of his mind when Jordan set to work on his latest breeding project. He was attempting to stabilize a particular terpene profile, crossing a mother bred from the strains Big Bud and Skunk #1, with a male plant stemming from Big Sur Holy Bud and Banana Kush, when the plant decided it was time to act out.<\/p>\n It was time to get weird. It was time for Freakshow to make its grand entrance.<\/p>\n In his decades growing, Jordan had already seen some phenotypes produce bizarre, out-of-the ordinary mutations. He says that it wasn\u2019t too rare, but also not too normal, to see mutations in the leaves: serrated leaves so deep that they reminded him of a wood saw or alligator teeth. One of these phenos from the above-mentioned cross, however, produced not only deep serrations, but also extra leaflets \u2014 not two or three on top of the usual seven, but \u201ca crazy amount of extras,\u201d he recalled, enough to support a millipede. Intrigued and encouraged, Jordan did the opposite of what you\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to do: He threw out all the normies and kept breeding the freaks. He sprouted hundreds of seeds \u2014 how many he can\u2019t recall.<\/p>\n \u201cI had never taken time to sit there and try to create a mutant,\u201d he said. \u201cBut once I did, it was working\u2026 Maybe I got kind of lucky. You can say that for a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He can say that, because the fact is that a mutant appeared: A cannabis plant with serrated leaves so long they almost look like ferns. He named the plant Freakshow, which has leaves so long they almost look like the cannabis plant has developed arms, like the plant is trying to reach out and grab your attention, give you a hug, or smother you in its embrace.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first saw that, it was, \u2018Oh man, what have I done?\u2019\u201d Jordan recalled. \u201cThat was the moment. I knew right then and there that nobody had ever seen this before.\u201d<\/p>\n A quick Instagram<\/a> search revealed he was right. Jordan\u2019s son, active online, started circulating photos of Freakshow. Weedheads around the world reacted with disbelief and anger. Surely this was a hoax. Surely this was a Photoshop job. No plant looks like this.<\/p>\n More photos \u2014 several generations\u2019 of Freakshow worth \u2014 revealed that, no, this was a real plant. Soon shock turned to awe turned to envy. Growers around the world wanted Freakshow for themselves. And now, they can have this rare cannabis in their collection, thanks to a chance encounter with Nathaniel Pennington, the founder and CEO of genetics outfit Humboldt Seed Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n By the time he crossed paths with Pennington, Jordan had pulled off the other trick of a cannabis breeder: Having \u201cdiscovered\u201d Freakshow, he\u2019d also \u201ctamed\u201d or domesticated it. He\u2019d breed enough generations of the plant so that its genetics were stable, or stable enough so that when a Freakshow plant produced seeds, those seeds would also reliably produce more Freakshow. Meanwhile, Pennington was running a massive genetics search, what he called the phenotype hunt. He hadn\u2019t yet heard of Freakshow \u2014 he was after some other genetics that Jordan had developed \u2014 but when Jordan\u2019s kids approached him and told him about this really weird plant, Pennington was intrigued. At the next meeting, at a small cannabis cup event prior to the passage of Proposition 64, Jordan himself appeared \u2014 and brought with him a living example, a small Freakshow in a pot.<\/p>\n \u201cImmediately a light went off,\u201d Pennington said. \u201c\u2018Oh my gosh,\u2019 I said. This is the most unique thing I have ever seen in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even better than the weird \u201crandom stubby leaves\u201d is the fact that Freakshow actually produces nice buds. It\u2019s also a tough plant, able to do well in regular garden conditions or on the darker side of a house, Jordan and Pennington say.<\/p>\n \u201cIt literally could be classified as brand new,\u201d says Jordan. He\u2019s already coined a term (and filed for a United States patent<\/a>) to classify the plant: Not indica<\/a>, not sativa \u2014 but cannabis monstra. He says it could be the genetic foundation for a whole new breed of plant, a style of ornamental cannabis that you\u2019d pick up at your local nursery. Freakshow had what you could call its coming-out party at the Emerald Cup in December 2019, and the results were promising.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a line out of the door to the Great Pavilion,\u201d Pennington said of the thirst for Freakshow seeds. \u201cWe had people fly in all the way from London.\u201d<\/p>\n And there was Jordan, signing seedpacks from total strangers who came an awful long way to find the mad genius behind this really freaky pot plant.<\/p>\n Pennington doubts this is the first time Freakshow has appeared on Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, I think maybe nine out of 10 breeders have seen those funky weeds \u2014 and then immediately gotten those genetics out,\u201d he said. \u201cI think most are like, \u2018Uh oh, what did I do wrong? I\u2019m starting to see a mutant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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Classifying the plant, and clarifying whether it qualifies as a subspecies of cannabis sativa or something else, is a job for the nerds and the scientists. More pragmatically, just because a plant is weird and cool doesn\u2019t mean it will \u201csurvive\u201d in \u201cthe real world.\u201d Even though Freakshow was available, would anyone want to buy it?<\/p>\n
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