Trichomes are what everyone calls crystals. They are all over the flowers and small leaves around buds. You can get a hand held lighted microscope at radio shack for 10 bucks. In the faq's they show trichomes, they look like golf balls sitting on a tee. They start out clear and then turn cloudy and milky, then amber. When they are almost all cloudy, milky you harvest. A few maybe amber but there are thousands and you want an average over all. Before peak they are week after peak they are stoney but the buzz doesn't last as long. Sorry to but in but this is what I have learned from Zandor and the rest of the guru's here. Hope it helps. If I don't learn something new every day here then I smoked too much and been vegging.