Nicotiana clevelandii is a species of wild tobacco known by the common name Cleveland's tobacco.

Nicotiana clevelandii
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Solanales
Family: Solanaceae
Genus: Nicotiana
Species:
N. clevelandii
Binomial name
Nicotiana clevelandii

Its specific epithet clevelandii honors 19th-century San Diego-based plant collector and lawyer Daniel Cleveland.[1]

It is native to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States in California and Arizona, where it grows in the Sonoran Desert, Colorado Desert, and in chaparral of the coastal canyons of the Peninsular Ranges and the Channel Islands of California.

Description edit

Nicotiana clevelandii is a glandular and sparsely hairy annual herb producing a slender stem up to about 60 centimetres (24 in) in maximum height. The leaf blades may be 18 centimetres (7.1 in) long, the lower ones borne on petioles.

The inflorescence bears white or green-tinged flowers with tubular throats around 2 centimeters long, their bases enclosed in pointed sepals which are unequal in length. The flower face is about a centimeter wide with five mostly white lobes.

The fruit is a capsule about half a centimeter long.

Uses edit

This plant was used for a variety of medicinal purposes and smoked in rituals by the Cahuilla.[2]

References edit

  1. ^ "Who was Salvia clevelandii named for?". Smarty Plant. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the University of Texas at Austin. [T]he author of the species chose to honor Daniel Cleveland, a nineteenth-century lawyer, amateur botanist, plant collector and co-founder of the San Diego Society of Natural History. [Besides Salvia clevelandii,] there are a number of other species named in his honor, including: Cheilanthes clevelandii, Chorizanthe clevelandii, Cryptantha clevelandii, Dodecatheon clevelandii, Horkelia clevelandii, Malacothrix clevelandii, Mimulus clevelandii, Muilla clevelandii, Nicotiana clevelandii and Penstemon clevelandii. Moreover, the monotypic Mexican genus, Clevelandia (now included in Castilleja) was also named in Mr. Cleveland's honor.
  2. ^ Ethnobotany

External links edit