1. Nicotiana Fruticosa, or shrubby tobacco: leaves lanceolate, subpetioled, embracing; flowers acute, stem frutescent. This rises with very branching stalks, about five feet high. Lower leaves a foot and a half long, broad at the base, where they half embrace the stalks, and about three inches broad in the middle, terminating in long acute points.
2. Nicotiana Alba, or white-flowered tobacco. This rises about five feet high: the stalk does not branch so much as that of the former. The leaves are large and oval, about fifteen inches long and two broad in the middle, but diminish gradually in size to the top of the stalk, and with their base half embrace it. The flowers grow in closer bunches than those of the former, and are white: they are succeeded by short oval obtuse seed-vessels. It flowers and perfects seeds about the same time with the former. It grows naturally in the woods of Tobago, whence the seeds were sent to Mr. Philip Miller by Mr. Robert Miller.
3. Nicotiana Tabacum or Virginian tobacco: leaves lanceolate, ovate, sessile, decurrent, flowers acute. Virginian tobacco has a large, long annual root; an upright, strong, round, hairy stalk, branching towards the top; leaves numerous, large, pointed, entire, veined, viscid, pale green; flowers in loose clusters or panicles.
4. Nicotiana Latissima, the great broad-leaved or Oroonoko; formerly, as Mr. Miller says, sown in England, and generally taken for the common broad-leaved tobacco of Caspar Bauhin, and others, but is very different from it. The leaves are more than a foot and a half long, and a foot broad; their surfaces very rough and glutinous, and their bases half embrace the stalk. In a rich moist soil the stalks are more than ten feet high, and the upper part divides into small branches, which are terminated by loose bunches of flowers, standing erect: they have pretty long tubes, and are of a pale purplish colour. It flowers in July and August, and the seeds ripen in autumn. This is the sort which is commonly brought to the market in pots.
5. Nicotiana Tabacum, broad-leaved, or sweet-scented. The stalks of this, which is the broad-leaved tobacco of Caspar Bauhin, seldom rise more than five or six feet high, and divide into more branches. The leaves are about ten inches long, and three and a half broad, smooth, acute, sessile; the flowers are rather larger, and of a brighter purple colour.
6. Nicotiana Angustifolia, or narrow-leaved Virginian tobacco; rises with an upright branching stalk, four or five feet high. The lower leaves are a foot long, and three or four inches broad: those on the stalks are much narrower, lessening to the top, and end in very acute points, sitting close to the stalks.
Besides these, it must be remarked, there are many other kinds of tobacco peculiar to different countries.
Nicotiana undulata, or New Holland tobacco: radical leaves obovate, obtuse, somewhat wavy; stem-leaves sharp-pointed. It came to Kew in 1800, and is perennial in the green-house, flowering all summer long. The settlers at Port Jackson are said to use this herb as tobacco.
Nicotiana plumbaginifolia, or lead-wort-leaved tobacco: radical leaves ovate, contracted at the base; stem-leaves lanceolate, clasping the stem; all undulated; corolla salver-shaped, acute. The native country of this species is unknown. It has been cultivated in some Italian gardens, and there were flowering specimens in May 1804, in the store of the late lady Amelia Hume.
Nicotiana axillaris, or axillary tobacco: leaves opposite, ovate, flat, nearly sessile; stalk axillary, solitary single-flowered; corolla obtuse; segments of the calyx deep, spatulate. Gathered by Commerson at Monte Video, and communicated by Thouin to the younger Linnæus. Leaves rather above an inch long, and near an inch wide, downy, and apparently viscid, like the rest of the herbage. Fruits unknown.