TREE-TOBACCO.
Nicotiana glauca, Graham. Nightshade Family.
Loosely branching shrubs, fifteen feet or so high. Leaves.—Alternate; petioled; ovate; smooth. Flowers.—Clustered at the ends of the branches. Calyx.—Campanulate; five-toothed. Corolla.—Tubular; eighteen lines long; with constricted throat; and border shortly five-toothed. Stamens.—Five, on the base of the corolla, adnate to the tube below. Anthers with two diverging cells. Ovary.—One-celled. Style slender. Stigma capitate; two-lobed. Hab.—Throughout Southern California; introduced.
The tall, loosely branching, spreading form of the tree-tobacco is a familiar sight in the south about vacant lots and waste places. Its clusters of long, greenish-yellow flowers hang gracefully from the ends of the slender branches, and the ovate leaves are rather long-stalked. It is supposed to have been introduced from Buenos Ayres, and old inhabitants remember the time when but one or two plants were known. In thirty years it has spread rapidly, and is now exceedingly common.