female preflowers, but no pistils?

i have 4 plants all currently showing what i believe are preflowers at the nodes. the largest of the plants was the first to show them, and has 4 (very) tiny little tube-shaped growths at the top few nodes. of the 3 others, 2 of them have just recently shown growths that look almost exactly the same and in the same spots. the last plant has growths in the same spot, but they're distinctly more round.

i'm guessing this means that i have 3 females and 1 male , but the largest plant, which showed the tube preflowers about a week and a half ago, still doesn't have any pistils coming out of them. does this sometimes take awhile? i know it can take days, but it's been at least a week... also, the little preflowers on the largest one haven't noticeably grown in size over the last week, though the plant is definitely still getting taller. they're still as tiny as the first day i saw them.

i can't get any pictures right now, but in a couple days i'll have my camera back and can try to snap a few shots. might be hard since they're VERY tiny.

what's goin' on here?

many thanks and +rep for any helpful responses

bump, i'll try to add pictures tomorrow

The preflowers probably wont get to big, the one that isnt showing pistils, is it sitting flush on the node or raised up alittle bit(like on a tiny stem)if it does it probably a male.

smppro said:

The preflowers probably wont get to big, the one that isnt showing pistils, is it sitting flush on the node or raised up alittle bit(like on a tiny stem)if it does it probably a male.

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if i remember right, it's flush on the node but a longer tube shape. it looks distinctly different from the one i think is male, which has MUCH more round shaped preflowers that are definitely on little stems.

is it common for preflowers to exist for a week or two before actually showing pistils and starting flowering?