Award-winning cannabis journalist and best-selling author David Downs highlights the hottest flowers blazing up the charts in legal U.S. states for the start of fall. It’s his (mostly) monthly column, dubbed “Terp Sherpa.”

There’s a reason why more people are smoking weed daily than drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes: Weed is very tight!

This month’s collection of hot zaza in legal stores from shore to shore speaks for itself. We got fruity, we got gassy, we got creamy and we got dreamy. High Times’ Terp Sherpa column finna get you higher! Let’s go!

Giraffe P

Angel City Farmers, Jungle Boys (CA), Minntz (MI), EV Family Farms (NJ), Garden Society (NY)

Terp Sherpa must acknowledge the power of the P—Giraffe P that is. The strain swept the California Zalympix contest earlier this summer, winning Best Tasting and Best Overall, with both the industry and the popular vote in agreement. Then Giraffe drew long lines for a clone release of it in Berlin at Mary Jane, where Doja sold cuts of it for 500 euros a pop.

Giraffe P is a cross of Z x Animal Bx2 bred by Seed Junky Genetics. It’s thicc, icy, and dark with a loud, zesty, gassy smell and a tropical candy, and vanilla taste. Its potent indica-hybrid effects are perfect for chillin’, grillin’, and enjoying a movie or show.

You can find Giraffe P in dispensaries across the USA, from California’s Jungle Boys, and in Master Makers’ new infused joints. On the East Coast, you’ll find it in New Jersey from EV Family Farms, in New York from Garden Society, and in Michigan from Seed Junky affiliate Minntz. If you see Giraffe P, be sure to try a taste.

BBL2

Maine Trees (ME), Lifted (WA)

There’s a new ‘BBL’ you need to know, and it’s BBL2 from Maine Trees. This cross of Blueberry Banana and Blue Lobster just took second place in flower at Seattle’s Terp Warz, where it was grown by Lifted. The win comes after a second place finish in New York’s The Billy’s contest. It’s no surprise. Blue Lobster is built on the loud, potent Apples and Bananas, and the blingy, bulbous Eye Candy. Maine Trees took the work from Compound Genetics and Cipher and bred in their Blueberry Banana to boost the loudness. Now you have these dramatic-looking, dark purple, huge buds that are just reeking loud. Maine Trees keeps the BBL2 close, with just a few licensees nationwide, so don’t miss it when you see it.

Peach Tree

Aficionado Seeds (global), The Flowery (FL), Doja (MI, MA)

Peach season is upon us in cannabis. Aficionado Seeds is selling a Peach Tree clone for $20,000 that was developed by Flower Factory. It’s punch-you-in-the-face loud peach that one might assume came from sprayed-on terpenes. Nope! Aficionado Leo isn’t disclosing the lineage of their Peach Tree, but it’s spongy, sticky, hairy, green bud that need not win a beauty contest to have a long line of suitors. At the same time, iconic designer brand Doja has a Peach Tree that is Gelonade x P41 and is also making waves in Michigan, Massachusetts, and California. There’s no legal authority managing conflicting weed names, so the two will just have to coexist alongside others. We’re in the middle of a proper Peach Wave with the likes of California cloners Purple City Genetics pumping out Moroccan Peach crosses by the truckload. And we’re here for it. Millions of peaches, peaches for thee.

Grapefruit Starburst

Higher Ground Canna, Master Makers and Canyon Creek Family Farms (CA)

The best hash starts with the best, most suitable flower, and the one to watch is Higher Ground Canna’s Grapefruit Starburst. Grapefruit Starburst powered Master Makers’ Gold medal in the California State Fair Cannabis Awards in July, and then it scored second in the Hashathon Cup on L.A. in August. The breeder, Higher Ground Canna’s John, told Terp Sherpa, “the awards were only a matter of time.”

Grapefruit Starburst comes from two of his selections of Starburst #36 x Starburst #36 bred three generations deep. Starburst #36 itself comes from Starburst OG x KC#36. John was among the first to vertically integrate breeding for hash strains—from cultivation and processing all the way through sales in the California medical era. So he got further along than everyone else, faster.

Grapefruit Starburst is green bud with orange pistils, and a frosty, dense look and sandy, fat trichomes that are perfect for washing and making rosin. Canyon Creek Family Farms of Trinity County, CA. and 710 Labs are two of the growers who’ve crushed it with the Starburst #36 line. Grapefruit Starburst is one of my favorite dabs gifted to me at SF Hash Week 2026, with a taste and smell exactly like it sounds—it’s otherworldly, transportive and on a whole other level. It’s got a clear, hybrid, uplifting and creative effect that’s social, with a little body, but not too heavy.

Orange Tree

Greenline (CA)

This month we’re doing peaches, pineapple, grapefruit, blueberry, and yes, Orange Tree. A California delicacy worth seeking out, Orange Tree is an award-winning exclusive from indoor growers Greenline of Monterey, CA. It’s a cross of 24K Gold and Orange Valley OG, so while it reeks of orange, it’s got a fat, dank bottom that lingers in a room. The effects are hybrid, and good for chilling on the beach or hiking, or just smelling the orange tree oil on your fingers like a weirdo. Greenline grows Enviroclean and does its own butane hash blasting, so watch out for them to bring orangey BHO back; much to the chagrin of Tangie haters.

Pineapple Surprize

THC Design (CA)

It’s hard to get legit pineapple terps in weed. Pineapple Express can end up smelling thin, with a hint of hay. The team at THC Design, which grows alongside the brand Lolo in Northern California have pulled it off this summer with the debut of their Pineapple Surprize. California’s rigid rules for genetic sourcing preclude us from revealing the full origin story, but suffice to say, it’s real, vintage pineapple weed with a publicly reported lineage of Hawaiian sativa x Skunk #1. It’s green, full of the awesome terpene ocimene, and one to grab if you’re a sativa-lover longing for something more than Jack Herer. Smoke it and do some yoga or hop on that Peloton.

Hijinx

Fig Farms (CA)

Oakland, CA’s Fig Farms returns for a rare back-to-back appearance in Terp Sherpa because they’ve done their homework. On July 4, they invited me down to smell hundreds of phenos fresh from their R&D room. In nearby walk-in refrigerators sat huge totes of seeds going back decades. They’re popping vintage stuff, classics and certified bangers, finding keepers, and crossing them into their own lines to form new-new for their dedicated Cali fanbase. One of the ones that stuck with me was Hijinx, a gorgeous, gassy cross of their award-winning Animal Face and their crowd-pleasing Rapper Weed. Rapper Weed crosses RS11 x Lemon Cherry Gelato for a guaranteed hit. The Animal Face amps up the aggression—giving it a paint thinner meets kiwi fruit smell. Plus, just look at her. Fig Farms weed isn’t merely pretty; it’s Fig Pretty.

Fruit Loops

Voyage Bloom (MI)

Next, we zoom on over to Michigan to check in with their zaza mafia where we find the new Voyage Bloom strain Fruit Loops on a tear. It’s the breeder BeanFiendz’s exclusive cross of Rainbow Belts x Super Boof and it smells pretty much like it sounds: artificial fruit, vanilla and cereal. Voyage Bloom has stayed in the winner’s circle first with a Zalympix win for Slurmz (Gastro Pop x Red Bullz), and now four more wins for Fruit Loops—two in the Summer’s End Smokeout (People’s Choice, and Grower’s Choice), and two more in Ball+Blaze in March for Best Tasting and Best High. The effects hit hybrid, and are versatile with all your end of summer activities. I’d say ‘follow your nose’ but we don’t want that Kellogg’s smoke.

Red Eye

Seed Junky (U.S.)

It sucks that the U.S. legal weed market is so balkanized that smokers in one state are left out from the badassery in other markets. We wanted something playing across the country to big crowds like ‘The Odyssey’ in IMAX, so we called up Seed Junky Genetics in L.A., which is running their strains in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Michigan. Seed Junky Wes Vasquez said by far their best performer has been their Red Eye, which they are just pumping out at immaculate quality. Red Eye is Permanent Marker crossed to Lemon Cherry Gelato, two hitters that go great together. Yes, it’s in the Gelato wheelhouse, and, yes, that is the most popular terp for a reason. It’s the Matt Damon of terps! The masses like what they like, and vox populi, vox dei. This indica-hybrid is best for sitting back and unwinding whether it’s with some coloring books, or a record, or watching the sunset in a late empire.

Moonbutter

Tower Three (MA)

We end this month’s roundup in the puritan stomping ground of Massachusetts, where killjoys will attempt to re-criminalize weed this fall for the first time in the legalization era. Everyone should sign up to beat those haters like a gong. After you get on the volunteer list with Marijuana Policy Project, celebrate your civic engagement with some superb Moonbutter by Tower Three. They’re one of the state’s few organic-esque indoor living soil growers, and it shows in the rowdy terps. Moonbutter is such a cool, weird, regional strain. It’s a cross of Starkush and Butterwolf from the breeder TeamingWithTerps. Starkush has Nigerian Kush and Stardawg in it from Top Dawg Seeds—making it a stone-cold East Coast classic. Butterwolf brings together Dungeon’s Vault Genetics’ Swamp Thing and Thug Pug’s Peanut Butter Breath. Yeyeah. It’s a fuel, pine, chem strain with notes of rosemary and rubber. It’s also a maximum indica, so when you get mad about the endless historical cycle of prohibition, you can at least chill out about it. Just be sure to get mad again and fuck prohibition—again—this fall.

What did we miss? Put us onto the next peak strain. Email Terp Sherpa today.

Editor’s note: High Times opposes Massachusetts Question 8. This column is a strain review and includes its author’s opinion on that measure.

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There is no registry, no copyright and no authority. Six breeders on how a plant gets its name, who has the right to give it one, and why the market is drowning in names that mean nothing.

Among a seed bank’s spreadsheets, life finds its way through a succession of cold codes: F2, BX1, phenotype #4… Numbers that correspond to Mendel’s laws, humidity percentages, and weeks of flowering. But outside, on the street, at the club counter, or in the intimacy of the indoor grow, the plant needs a soul. And that soul, in the modern market, begins to be built from its very inception, starting with a name.

That’s why naming a cannabis strain is an act that oscillates between the brilliance of the alchemist and guerrilla marketing. There’s no civil registry office for plants that smell like diesel or tropical fruits, but there are unwritten rules that separate an ordinary cross from a legendary strain.

Who Gets to Name It

So, who names the strains? Short answer: the breeders. And more often than not, those names are derived from the parent strains and the crosses that came before them, which provide clues about tastes, aromas, potency, or growth. James Loud, of James Loud Genetics, maintains that “the breeder who creates the cross should name the variety, because they defined the genetic intent and direction.” On the other hand, he acknowledges that if a grower selects a unique phenotype, they have the right to name it as long as they credit the original breeder, because “breeding establishes the framework, but selection is where expression becomes reality.”

In truth, since there is no global regulatory framework, there is no international system available for registering names, nor are there strict guidelines in this regard. Legendary grower Jorge Cervantes recalls that there are cases where the naming responds purely to marketing: “In the case of Jack Herer from Sensi Seeds, it was previously called Four Way. It was an exceptional plant, and they wanted to give it a boost. They changed the name, and everyone was growing it.” Many strains are, let’s say, effectively christened. Their names end up recorded in available public registries or simply on the front lines of the marketplace.

For Denise Yacar, breeder at Mamuaseeds, the name is the tool that fixes identity in a legal nebula that is only now beginning to clear. “Historically, the only thing that could last was precisely the name, almost like a brand,” she explains. Before the explosion of social media, genetics traveled almost exclusively through oral tradition. The name was the brand. Names like AK-47 or Skunk became totems of the 420 universe. Cervantes adds that Skunk #1 was named by David Watson (Sam the Skunkman), but that other names are born from geography. For example, “Williams Wonder comes from Williams, Oregon.” There, technical traceability mattered little if the name managed to colonize the collective memory. If it sticks, it sticks.

However, the creative process is often the inverse of commercial urgency. First comes the clay, then the words. “In the actual practice of plant breeding, plants don’t have names: they’re codes, acronyms, phenotype numbers,” says Yacar. But there’s always a plant that breaks the mold. “That’s when the possibility of giving it a proper name begins to emerge,” she continues. For Kyle Kushman, breeder and journalist, this process is intuitive: “Many times, the name comes after trying the new strain. The flavor, color, or smell leads to a name that just suits the characteristics.”

Breeder Ramiro Gopar understands this same ritual: for him, the right to name belongs to those who get their hands dirty. “The one who does the fine work of selection and stabilization is the one lucky enough to name it,” he affirms. For him, the circle is completed with the “tasters” in his inner circle, the first to try to put into words what the resin evokes. Kushman agrees that if you find an exceptional female in a bag of seeds, even if you didn’t create it yourself, you can distinguish it with a proper name: “You used your own intuition and tastes to select a ‘keeper.’”

“Breeding establishes the framework, but selection is where expression becomes reality.”

James Loud, James Loud Genetics

Mother First, Father Second

So how is that label chosen? There’s a kind of cannabis heraldry. A widespread convention dictates that the mother’s name comes first, followed by the father’s. A tacit weed matriarchy. It’s a matter of lineage and transparency. Yacar exemplifies this with her Phantom Ice strain: a cross between a Phantom Cookies (mother) and a Jamaican Ice (father). Loud notes that this depends on the breeder’s style: “Some breeders prefer to clearly reflect the parentage in the name to preserve lineage transparency, while others take a more creative or brand-driven approach.”

But not everyone seeks explicit genealogy. Sometimes the goal is impact, synesthesia. For instance, Sergio Puerta of Black Tuna Seeds understands naming as a moment of creative epiphany. In his view, the name should act as a bridge to the flavor. Loud analyzes the duality: “A name like Blue Lobster says nothing about the plant itself, but it reflects the identity of the selector and the brand behind it. The plant defines the experience, but the name often defines the narrative.”

Meanwhile, as a branding tool, Black Tuna plays in the Spanglish and Latin identity league with names like Merengón, after the Colombian meringue dessert, or Kid Pambelé, after the Colombian boxer who became his country’s first world champion. In short: naming a strain Kid Pambelé isn’t just a tribute. It’s infusing the genetics with the force of a knockout punch. Ultimately, this twist gives the plant a biography, a direction, some DNA coordinates, and even a touch of pop culture magic.

Nobody Owns a Strain Name

In an industry that still has one foot in the underground and the other in the official registry, the name can also become a legal battleground. Yacar has encountered bureaucracies where the name must be a “commercial novelty.” On this point, Cervantes clarifies the technical difference: “An illegal plant cannot be patented in the United States, but the name can be trademarked. That doesn’t protect the genetics, only the name.”

Gopar warns that the cannabis world remains a gray area. “In practice, names are copied, reinterpreted, and trampled on.” And Loud is emphatic on this point: “There is no true copyright protection. Names get reused, repurposed, and sometimes outright taken, with little consequence.” In the end, the true “rights” are ultimately determined by the breeder’s reputation. The name is a promise, but if what’s inside the jar doesn’t live up to expectations, the label falls away on its own. Kushman adds that, in the absence of laws, “the strong ethical base of the Cannabis Community does a pretty good job of policing those who would take credit for the accomplishments of others.”

Name Inflation

The uncomfortable truth: the market is suffering from name inflation. Marketing often moves faster than genetic stability. “Today, the trend is very much driven by marketing. Everything indicates that it will continue moving towards trendy names rather than products with real genetic identity,” laments Yacar. Kushman views this commercialization with concern: “A lot of the ‘give credit’ kumbaya is being swept aside for Pokémon style in flashy mylar packaging. It’s going to get harder for enthusiasts to know where the strain they’re smoking really comes from.”

“A lot of the ‘give credit’ kumbaya is being swept aside for Pokémon style in flashy mylar packaging.”

Kyle Kushman

However, Gopar is optimistic and believes that growers are no longer so easily fooled. “I think a more honest era is coming: less empty marketing, more real identity.” Loud agrees that “the names that last will be attached to varieties that consistently deliver a high-quality experience.”

Thus, the success of a strain is not strictly measured by the audacity of its name, but by its ability to survive and spark a sense of wonder. For the future, Cervantes foresees a more scientific and controlled system, where “the difference between patented plants and those that are not will be significant.” Meanwhile, as Sergio Puerta says, it’s about “following the creative process.” When a plant adapts and the user chooses it again, the initial introduction has been successful. That’s when the plant ceases to be merely a symbol and becomes someone’s favorite, which is what truly matters in this whole story.

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