Cultivated Tobacco

Widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. The ‘tobacco plant’ is mainly cultivated in the N.W.F.P. regions of Pakistan on a commercial scale. Tobacco is both smoked and chewed; it contains the alkaloid nicotine, a stimulant, which is harmful to the nervous and respiratory system. Also used for insecticidal purposes. The species is sometimes found as an escape.

Used for tobacco and as an insecticide, also medicinally for anaesthetic, inducing sweat, or vomiting.

Plant up to 1 m tall, viscid-pubescent. Leaves cauline, 24-40 x 13-25 cm, oblong to broadly elliptic-ovate, cuneate or ± auricled, texture thin. Flowers pink, in axillary and terminal compact corymboid panicles. Calyx 10-12 mm long, oblong, persistent in fruit; lobes unequal. Corolla tube 3.5-4.6 cm long, glandular-hairy without; limb up to 15 cm broad, lobes acute to apiculate. Anthers 3 mm long, oblong; filaments ± 3.5 cm long. Capsule 20 mm long, oblong-ovoid. Seeds less than 1 mm long, angled, minutely ruminate, brown.

Herbs viscid, annual or short-lived perennial, 0.7-2 m tall, glandular hairy overall. Leaves decurrent, winging stems; leaf blade ovate to elliptic or lanceolate, 30(-70) × 8-15(-30) cm, membranous, glandular hairy, base narrowed, nearly half clasping, apex acuminate. Inflorescences many-flowered, much-branched panicles. Pedicel 0.5-2 cm. Calyx tubular or tubular-campanulate, 2-2.5 cm; lobes deltate, acuminate, unequal. Corolla yellowish at base, yellowish, greenish, red, or pink distally, funnelform, 3.5-5 cm; limb 1-1.5 cm in diam., with acute unequal lobes. Stamens unequal, sometimes partly exserted. Capsules ellipsoid or ovoid. Seeds brown, rounded, ca. 0.5 mm in diam. Fl. summer, fr. autumn.

Tropical America, widely cultivated as tobacco and naturalised.

Distribution: Native to Mexico and northern S. America.

800-1800 m

Fl. Per.: April-May.

Widely cultivated throughout China [native to South America]

Nicotiana chinensis Fischer ex Lehmann.