78 
nal, in his monograph of the Solanaces in De Candolle’s Pro- 
dromus (vol. xiii. 1, = ids adopts Lindley's species with the remark, 
* celeberrimum tabac m e Shiraz producit." Yet, of the half a hundred 
species of Nicotiana ней have been described, only two are ordinarily 
own for smoking, namely, Wicotiana Tabacum and the more hardy 
yellow-flowered species, №. rustica 
A curious fact to start with is ` that under JV. persica Lindley has 
redescribed a well-known species. As Alphonse De Candolle remarks 
L'Origine des Plantes Puitietes, 2nd ed., р. 115), * Lindley has 
** figured с zt before vr Link and Otto (Icones plant. rar. 
* Horti ber. t. 82). ‘This was raised from seeds sent by Sello from 
* S. Brazil. " is a species certainly Prazilian, nearly allied to the 
* Australian М. sxaveolens. am unable to offer an opinion as to 
* how this species has been introduced into Persia. It must have been 
* as a garden escape, or through seeds introduced by accident from 
* America. It is improbable that its cultivation is common in Persia, 
" e Olivier and Bruguière, as well as other naturalists, who have seen- 
* the cultivation of tobacco in that country, made no mention of 
У oN. persica.’ 
The difference between the two plants is unmistakeable. N. persica, 
or, rather, N. alata, has white flowers, with a long slender tube, ter- 
minating in a nearly flat or salver-shaped limb, while the corolla of 
N. Tabacum is red, and funnel-sha; 
A Nico otiana, now much cultivated in о under the name of 
N. affinis, is probably only a cultivated form 
long ago as 1876 steps were taken to st the point by procuring 
from Persia authentic seeds of Shiraz tobacc 
Mr. W. Taytour Tomson to RoYAr GARDENS, Kew. 
My DEAR Sir, Tehran, 30th iiid i wis 
IN accordance. w ith a request received some time ago, I have 
much pleasure in sss aca you by to-day’s mail a bag of the best Shiraz 
se 
I have also received the — не as to the sowing, watering, and 
growing them, but as there is no time in which to have | them translated 
for sending by to-day's courier they shall be sent on by the first oppor- 
tunity. 
I am, &c. 
Dr. J. Hooker, C.B. (Signed) — Ww. Тдзтоов THOMSON. 
The seed own at K ow; and largely distributed. It w 
doubtedly “ merely a form of Nicotiana Тађасит.” ‘This was stated 
in the Kew Report for 1877 (p. 4 
About ten years later attention Ye to be attracted to a mysterious 
article of conimerce mentioned in consular and trade reports as Tum 
belt, or Tombak. The ~ extracts are taken from an interesting 
paper by Mr. E. M. Holmes, F.L.S., the Curator of the Museum of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, printed in the Pharmaceutical J qe for 
February 13, 1886 (p. 681). ; 
