From Atanasoff Hall to the Armory, students touring the ISU campus might find another weed growing besides dandelions and crabgrass.

Plants of Cannabis sativa, otherwise known as marijuana, can be found sprouting up in areas around Atanasoff Hall, the Armory and other places on campus.

This does not surprise Dennis Erickson, manager of facilities maintenance.

“We do see them from time to time when we’re out doing our bedding,” he said. “We can’t have somebody searching all the time.”

ISU Police Capt. Gene Deisinger said he was not surprised by the prospect of marijuana plants growing on campus grounds.

“I don’t have any direct information, [but] it’s entirely possible there may be some out there,” he said.

Hemp, a tough fiber made from the leaves and flowers of the marijuana plant, can be found all over the state of Iowa growing wild, and is a remnant from when it was cultivated in Iowa earlier in the previous century, said Deborah Lewis, a curator in the botany department.

There is even an abandoned hemp processing facility in Grundy Center, a town near Dubuque, she said.

“The original building is still there,” said Jean Evans, secretary of the Grundy County Historical Society. “They were raising hemp to make ropes for the navy,” she said. “Many of my friends worked there. They did turn many corn fields into hemp fields.”

According to the Global Hemp Web site, www.globalhemp.com, Iowans were asked in 1943 to grow 60,000 acres of hemp as part of 300,000 acres to be cultivated nationwide. The hemp was to be used for ropes and other types of cordage. Because of the war, normal sources of raw material for ropes were cut off, and hemp offered an alternative.

“It wasn’t cultivated for THC content, but for hemp,” Lewis said.

She said industrial hemp, which is very likely the variety found on campus, has less than 1 percent THC content (the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) and would be of little use to those seeking a recreational drug.

Although many states have passed bills calling for industrial hemp cultivation, to date it remains illegal without federal authorization, according to the Global Hemp Web site.