02 PENTANDRIA. 



and blossoms in July and August. 1 It appears to 

 have been first introduced into Europe as a medical 

 herb, about the year 1500, of which this account is 

 given by Dr. Monardusof Seville, an eminent Spanish 

 physician of that time. 



M. John Nicot, m the French ambassador to the 

 king of Portugal, going one day to see the Royal 

 Prisons, the Governor presented him with this herb as 

 a foreign plant brought from Florida. M. Nicot 

 planted it in his garden at Lisbon, where it grew 

 well ; after which he was told by one of his Pages, 

 that a great cure had been performed on a young man 

 who had a dangerous excoriating disease on his cheek, 

 by an external application of its bruised leaves* This 

 case was examined into, and believed to be true, 

 which gave the plant such celebrity that it was called 

 the ambassadors herb; and afterwards so many cures 

 were said to be effected by it, that M. Nicot sent it 

 into France, to Francis II. From this circumstance 

 it has its botanical name Nicotiana, to honour M. 

 Nicot. Among the Indians it was called Picielt, and 

 its European name, Tabacco, was given to it from the 

 Isand called Tabaco, now Tobago. 



The introduction of smoking this herb in Eng- 

 land is given to Sir Walter Raleigh after his discovery 

 of Virginia, about the year 1580) though before the 



1 For a good description of the manner of cultivating tobac- 

 co, see Long's History of Jamaica, Vol. iii. p. 710. 



m M. Nicot was ambassador in Portugal from the year I55C 

 to 1561. 



