TOBACCO PLANT

Family SOLANACEAE
Nicotiana alata var. grandiflora
Annual

Of these showy and fragrant perennials best treated as half-hardy annuals, this is the best known, being a native of Brazil, and sometimes offered in seedsmen’s catalogues under Nicotiana a. affinis.

The basal leaves are wide, like those of some Mulleins, and from these the stems rise three to five feet, bearing a number of tubular flowers of elegant form, widening at the mouth with five petioles that are white in the type with a reverse of pale violet.
There are also various forms with flowers of rose, crimson, pink, lilac and cream.

Notable varieties are
Crimson King, two to three feet;
Crimson Border, eighteen inches;
Miniature White, eighteen inches.

Cultivated both for the beauty of the flowers and for their fragrance, plants may be raised from seed sown in gentle heat early in the year, pricked off into boxes, and planted out in late May.
There are a number of other annual species, but this is by far the most favoured.

Propagate from seed.

The flowering season is in late summer.

Nicotiana – Tobacco
Half-Hardy Annual.
Three to six feet.
Flowers white (also rose or purplish forms July to October).

A fine race that may almost be called sub-tropical, with broad-leaved vigorous growth, and flowers with a rich and delicate scent which is quite their own.

Nicotiana affinis, the best known form, is a nocturnal flowerer; all day the buds hang furled and scentless, but with the first of the twilight it covers itself with white, starry blossoms and fills the air with its perfume.
The plant grows to a height of three or four feet; its fibre is somewhat brittle, and it may need the help of a stick or two on windy positions.
The roots are brittle, long and cord-shaped, and when the plants are cleared away in autumn, some pieces of the fibre are sure to remain in the bed, and will frequently throw up new plants in the following summer.

Nicotiana silvestris is of more stately growth, reaching a height of six feet or more, with broad viscous leaves.
The individual flowers are smaller than affinis, but are produced in clusters, and though they are at their best in the evening, remain open during the daylight hours; they have the characteristic scent in a less degree than affinis.

Nicotiana grandiflora purpurea has flowers of a dull, rather bricky red- purple, and is chiefly grown for its fine foliage.

Nicotiana Sanderæ a hybrid with rosy-crimson flowers.
In habit this variety resembles affinis, the flowers are of the size of those of silvestris, produced in clusters, and are almost scentless.
The newer hybrid has been trumpeted with the customary exaggeration of the florist’s world, and it has by this time ceased to be the “introduction of the century” or to “mark and epoch” in the chronicles of garden advertisement.
Then the colour is at its best, it is a bright rose-crimson, and well deserves a place in the garden.
Unfortunately a packet of seed produces a large proportion of flowers with distinctively unpleasant tones, all tinged with something of the loathed “Magenta”.
Nicotiana Sanderæ should be grown, but certainly not with the expectations of enthusiasm.

All the Nicotianas should be sown on moderate heat – a hot-bed ranging between the limits of 43° and 65° is the best.
The seed is very minute, and must be spread thinly and evenly on the soil in the seed-pans, lightly covered with finely sifted sandy compost, and very carefully watered with a fine-rosed syringe.

Prick out the seedlings when they are manageable in boxes, or on beds of soil under glass, and plant out eighteen inches or two feet apart at the end of May.

All the varieties may be used for groups in mixed borders, and they may be massed in beds on lawns, or in front of shrubberies.
The ground should be deep and rich, and there should be plenty of moisture; hot dry corners, or a starved root-run are not the conditions for growing fine Tobaccos.