“a shrub which grows across much of the South American country and is often considered a weed”
I can we can still call it “weed.”
When I was growing up on a farm in the Midwest in a spot in our formerly used hog lot there grew wild some of the tallest cannabis plants. I guess the hog manure was great fertilizer.
I remember pulling up one plant and hanging it in a shed, but I chickened out and destroyed it pretty soon thereafter.
The wildwood flower grew out on the farm
And we never knowed what it was called
A guy I went to grade school with and worked with at a restaurant for a while drove to Kansas and saw a field of it and stopped to pick some. The cops knew about it too and were waiting for him. He called his Dad to bail him out and his Dad refused. Last I heard he had never spoken to his father again.
Depending on exactly where in the Midwest, the weed might have been descended from selectively planted ‘hemp’ from WW2 era production. Some of those plants were 8 ft. or more.
Iowa State University, for one, kept selective breeding records.