Flavonoid

Flavonoids are a large class of plant polyphenols responsible for much of the color in fruits, vegetables, and flowers, including cannabis.

Thousands of flavonoids are known across the plant kingdom; familiar examples include quercetin in onions and apples and the anthocyanins that color berries. Cannabis contains a couple of dozen, among them a few, called cannflavins, found nowhere else. They occur at low concentrations relative to cannabinoids and terpenes and are generally not reported on certificates of analysis.

Flavonoids are not cannabinoids and do not act on cannabinoid receptors in any established way; their presence in a full-plant extract is part of what distinguishes it from an isolate. Flavonoids as a group have been studied extensively in nutrition science, but any specific role for cannabis flavonoids in what a CBD product does is unclear and largely preclinical. The term is informational for most readers rather than a purchasing consideration.