Fiddleleaf tobacco

Eucapnia repanda (Willdenow) Rafinesque; Nicotiana doniana Dunal; N. lyrata Kunth

Herbs, annual, from basal rosette. Stems loosely branched, 5–15 dm, rough with minute tubercules. Rosette leaves: petiole short and winged or leaves sessile; blade spatulate to oblong-ovate, 10–15 cm, surfaces softly viscid-pubescent. Cauline leaves sessile; blade pandurate, becoming smaller distally, distal leaves oblong-ovate or pandurate, 1–5 cm, base clasping, apex acute, surfaces softly viscid-pubescent. Inflorescences long, flexuous false racemes, occasionally with shorter lateral branches, not leafy; flowering crepuscular. Pedicels 0.3–0.7 cm. Flowers: calyx green, 1.5 cm, minutely hispid, tube globose, strongly 10-ribbed, lobes erect, linear, length equaling tube, subequal, viscid-pubescent; corolla white, straight, 4–6 cm (excluding limb), sparsely pubescent or glabrous at base, tube white, straight, 3–5.5 cm × 1 mm, gradually widening to gaping throat 5–6 × 3 mm, cobwebby-pubescent internally, limb spreading or (in daytime) slightly assurgent, white, pentagonal, 2–2.4 cm diam., lobes acute apically; stamens inserted at base of throat, included; filaments equal (fused to corolla tube for their entire length, anthers appearing sessile), glabrous; style straight, equaling stamens. Capsules ovoid, 1 cm. Fruiting calyces not tearing at sinuses, covering entire capsule. Seeds 0.6 mm. 2n = 48.

Flowering Feb–Sep. Moist ground along streams, open areas; 0–800 m; Ala., Tex.; Mexico (Nuevo Léon, Tamaulipas, Veracruz); West Indies (Cuba).

Nicotiana repanda occurs along the Gulf Coast and in Texas in southern, central, and the eastern edge of west Texas, in adjacent Mexico, and on the island of Cuba. It overlaps in distribution with N. plumbaginifolia but is easy to distinguish from that species by its pandurate (fiddle-shaped) cauline leaves and longer, thinner flowers.