NICOTIANA TABACUM. ORD. XII. Solanaceee seu Luride. Si 
and follow the stem downwards: the bractez are long, linear, and 
pointed: the flowers terminate the stem and branches in loose. 
clusters or panicles: the corolla is monopetalous, funnel-shaped, 
with a long hairy tube, which gradually swells towards the limb, 
where it divides into five folding acute segments of a reddish 
colour: the calyx is hairy, about half the length of the corolla, and 
is cut into five narrow segments: the five filaments are bent inwards, 
tapering, and crowned with oblong anthera: the germen is oval, 
and supports a long slender style, terminated by a round cleft 
stigma: the capsule is oval, and divided into two cells, which con- 
tain many small roundish seeds—It is a native of America, and 
flowers in July and August. 
Tobacco was first imported into Europe about the middle of the 
sixteenth century by Hernandez de Toledo, who sent it to Spain and 
Portugal; at that time the 1e Ambassador of Francis II. resided at the 
court of Lisbon, and in the year 1560, he carried the Tobacco into 
France, when it was presented to Catharine de Medicis as a plant 
from the new world, possessing extraordinary virtues. The Ambas- 
sador’s name was Nicot, and hence the appellation Nicotiana. It 
appears from Lobel, that this plant was cultivated in Britain previous 
to the year 1570;* and the introduction of the custom of smoking 
it in England is ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh. The cultivation of 
Tobacco* is now common in various parts of the globe, and though 
prohibited by the laws of this country, still the manufacture of it 
forms no inconsiderable branch of commerce. 
* Vide I. c. : 
* Long, in his History of Jamaica, describes the method of its cultivation to be as 
follows :—** When a regular plantation of Tobacco is intended, several beds are pre- 
pared, well turned up with the hoe. The seed, on account of its smallness, is mixed 
with ashes, and sown upon them a little before the rainy season. The beds are then 
raked, or trampled with the feet, to make the seed take the sooner. The plants ap- 
pear in two or three weeks, So soon as they have acquired four leaves, the strongest 
are drawn up carefully and planted in the Tobacco field by a line, at the distance of 
about three feet from each plant: this is done either with a stick or the fingér. Ifne 
rain falls, it should be watered two or three times, to make it strike root, Every 
morning and evening the plants must be surveyed, in order io destroy a worm which 
No. 18.—voL, 2. 3c 
