Nicotiana tabacum |
Nicotiana |
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cultivated tobacco |
tobacco |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, or shrubs to small trees, soft-wooded, without basal rosette. | Herbs, shrubs, or small trees, with soft wood, annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial, often rosette-forming, from taproot or rarely horizontal rootstock (forming colonies), sparsely to densely viscid-pubescent with simple hairs, rarely glabrous. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | single, usually unbranched, woody at base (hollow), 10–30 dm, viscid-pubescent. |
usually erect, sometimes branching from base. |
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Leaves | alternate, densely clustered in rosette-forming species, sessile or petiolate; petiole often winged; blade simple, margins entire or irregularly and obscurely crenate and sometimes undulate. |
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Cauline leaves | sessile; blade elliptic to lanceolate, 5–50 cm, becoming smaller distally, base tapering or decurrent, apex acute to acuminate, surfaces viscid-pubescent. |
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Inflorescences | branched with distinct central axis (branches themselves branched and shorter than central axis), usually somewhat leafy; flowering diurnal. |
terminal or apparently axillary, cymose, usually forming false racemes, or glomerulate. |
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Pedicels | (spreading), 0.5–1.5 cm. |
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Flowers | calyx uniformly green, 1.2–2.5 cm, viscid-pubescent, lobes long-triangular, equaling or shorter than tube, unequal; corolla straight or strongly curved in distal 1/2, 3–5 cm (excluding limb), viscid-puberulent externally, tube pale greenish cream to pink or red, slightly curved or straight, 0.7–1.5 cm × 2–2.5 mm, widening to throat 25–40 × 5 mm, somewhat dilated distally, glabrous or minutely puberulent internally, limb spreading to somewhat reflexed, pale pink to reddish pink, occasionally white, pentagonal, 2–3 cm diam., lobes pale pink to reddish pink, occasionally white, acute; stamens inserted near base of throat; filaments unequal, 4 slightly exserted, 3–5 cm, 1 included, 3 cm (shorter than the other 4), pubescent on proximal 1/2; style straight or slightly curved, ± equaling longer stamens. |
bisexual, 5-merous (fasciated with increased parts only in cultivars), radially symmetric or somewhat bilaterally symmetric, especially in androecium; calyx tubular or narrowly campanulate, 5-lobed, lobes persistent, usually deltate or triangular, equal or unequal, usually slightly accrescent and mostly enclosing capsule; corolla white to cream, variously marked or tinged with pink or purple, or yellow-green, radial or more commonly at least somewhat bilateral, tubular, funnelform, or salverform, limb deeply 5-lobed to ± entire, lobes, if present, rounded to deltate, sometimes emarginate; stamens 5, inserted variously from near base of corolla tube to near apex, sometimes unequal (2 + 2 + 1), on equal filaments or filaments of unequal length with one inserted at a different level and usually shorter than the other 4; anthers dorsifixed (or appearing basifixed), ellipsoid to globose, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; ovary 2-carpellate (irregularly more in some cultivars); style filiform, straight or curved; stigma capitate or slightly 2-lobed. |
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Fruiting calyces | often tearing at sinuses (especially in cultivars), covering 1/2 mature capsule. |
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Fruits | capsules, usually ovoid, sometimes narrowly so, 2–4-valved (occasionally many-valved in cultivars), dehiscent apically with long septicidal cleft and shorter loculicidal cleft. |
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Capsules | narrowly ellipsoid, ovoid, or globose, 1.2–2 cm. |
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Seeds | 0.5 mm. |
angular to oblong (minute), occasionally somewhat reniform. |
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x | = (9, 10), 12, (16, 18, 19), 24. |
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2n | = 48. |
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Nicotiana tabacum |
Nicotiana |
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Phenology | Flowering year-round. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Disturbed areas, field edges. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–1000 m. (0–3300 ft.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
FL; GA; KY; LA; MD; MI; MO; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV; ON; South America; cultivated nearly worldwide except Antarctica [Introduced in North America]
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North America; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; s Africa; Australia [Introduced widely] |
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Discussion | Nicotiana tabacum is the principal tobacco of commerce and was the mainstay of the economy of the Chesapeake Bay region during Colonial times. It replaced N. rustica as the main cultivated species in North America in the early 1600s. Most herbarium specimens of N. tabacum come from gardens or research greenhouses, but it occasionally escapes and is an ephemeral weed where the climate is mild. Commercial tobacco cultivars are grown for their large leaves, and flowers are removed to allow further growth of top leaves before harvest, but if marginal individuals are not harvested and are collected, they could be mistaken for naturalized weeds. Nicotiana tabacum is widely cultivated across North America. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Species ca. 75 (12 in the flora). Nicotiana is recognizable by its tubular flowers and usually sticky pubescence. Of the species occurring in North America, only N. glauca is not sticky-pubescent. The genus has long been of interest due the high number of allopolyploid species (T. H. Goodspeed 1954; M. W. Chase et al. 2003; E. W. McCarthy et al. 2015). Most species of Nicotiana in the flora area have distinct basal rosettes until flowering occurs, and cauline leaves usually differ in morphology from those in the basal rosette. Many species occur as short-lived perennials in areas without frost, but occur as annuals where winters are harder. The tree tobacco (N. glauca) is the only truly woody species occurring in North America. Species of Nicotiana that bloom in the evening usually have white or cream flowers and are pollinated by moths, while day-flowering species have yellow, pink, or cream flowers and are pollinated by bees; however, this overall pattern does not hold strictly true. Nicotiana attenuata has become a model system for the study of the complex interplay between pollinators and herbivores in the evolution of floral and other traits (for example, C. Diezel et al. 2011; D. Kessler et al. 2015). Nicotiana species are often cultivated and occur occasionally as garden or greenhouse escapes. Nicotiana alata Link & Otto and N. × sanderae W. Watson have been reported for the flora area but are known only as ephemerals or from cultivation. Some records of N. alata are possible misidentifications for N. longiflora, from which N. alata differs in its strongly decurrent cauline leaves and larger corollas with wider tubes. Nicotiana × sanderae has striking red salverform corollas; various horticultural hybrids of this long-flowered species are possible ephemeral occurrences on waste heaps. The two tobaccos of commerce, Nicotiana rustica and N. tabacum, are cultivated as ornamentals or as sources of leaves for human use. Although most herbarium specimens from the flora area are clearly from cultivation, both taxa are sometimes adventive. The small seeds and weedy habits of Nicotiana species predispose them to become invasive; for example, the non-native species N. glauca is a common component of ecosystems in western North America. This propensity to grow in disturbed areas means cultivated species are likely to become established briefly in areas where soil is loose or in old garden sites. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 14. | FNA vol. 14. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Solanaceae > Nicotiana | Solanaceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | N. angustifolia, N. fruticosa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 180. (1753) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 180. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 84. (1754) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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