School me on Nicotiana Persica

[Pipeh]

I was looking at "London Bridge Is Falling Down", illustrated by Peter Spier, and there is an illustration of a tobacco shop (CA 18th century?) and there is a big jar marked "Nicotiana Persica" (along with jars marked Rappee, Java, Rustica, etc.)

Wikipedia has an article on Nicotiana alata, which mentions it is sometimes used in Iran for water pipe tobacco, and that it is also known as sweet tobacco, Jasmine tobacco, Persian tobacco.

It's this a variety that is available to those of us in the West? Is it considered one of the types of the general category, "Orientals?"

And perhaps most importantly: what is it like?

 

[sardonicus87]

You generally wouldn't smoke Nicotiana alata from what I understand, it is a species of tobacco plant (not a varietal) that is considered to be ornamental. You can buy it online, I even planned to buy some myself to grow for their fragrant flowers, so yes you can at least buy the plants, but I never heard of anyone selling tobacco made from it. Nicotiana persica is just another name for alata.

Nicotiana tabacum is the species from which we get the varietals of oriental, burley and virginia; Nicotiana rustica is the species from which we get Rustica.

With plants, the best way I can describe the difference is, like with dogs. All domestic dogs are the same species, but they're all different breeds. A varietal is like a "breed" of a given species. Although there's some technical differences and differing definitions about a "varietal" versus a "cultivar" (by some standards, one is created and patented by someone), but they're essentially the same thing, just one is patented and can only be sold by patent holder and anyone they've licensed to sell it.

 

[macaroni]

With plants, the best way I can describe the difference is, like with dogs. All domestic dogs are the same species, but they're all different breeds. A varietal is like a "breed" of a given species.

Thnx, your analogy helps me

 

[sardonicus87]

As to their lack of use in the west as smoking tobacco, I can only speculate on reasons why beyond a lack of commercial viability.

It could be there wasn't really a demand if it ever was offered, or it could be that the yield isn't worth the effort, or maybe they don't provide enough nicotine, maybe it didn't work well for blending... or it could even be that nobody ever tried to make it commercially viable because N. tabacum already did fine (kind of a "stick to what you know" sort of thing)...

 

[Pipeh]

Some interesting reading:

Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica - https://iranicaonline.org/articles/tobacco
a lot of stuff about tobacco in Iran

Species - Modern Snuff - http://modernsnuff.com/species/index.html
Indicates that it's grown by the Iranian Tobacco company and that they have a monopoly

Glossary - Pipedia - https://pipedia.org/wiki/Glossary#S
Refers to it being called Shirazi or Shiraz Tobacco

About Shiraz(i) tobacco - https://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/about-shiraz-i-tobacco.2100/
Good comments from people who have tried to grow their own.

Shirazi Morphology - https://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/shirazi-morphology.212/
One comment here from someone in Iran mentions that there is no longer (as of 2016) a monopoly, and he doubts anyone grows Shirazi any more.

https://ia800708.us.archive.org/vie...2307%2F4111379.zip&file=10.2307%2F4114920.pdf
This seems to talk about how there has long been some confusion as to what Persian tobacco actually is, with some descriptions saying it is N. alata, but in the end after many actual samples have been collected it seems to just be N. tabacum.



So my conclusion is that the illustration of the jar of Nicotiana Persica in my book was meant to contain Shirazi/Persian Tobacco, back from a time when it was misidentified as a separate species.