Indian or Bigelow’s or Wallace’s tobacco

Amphipleis quadrivalvis (Pursh) Rafinesque; Dictyocalyx quadrivalvis (Pursh) Hooker f. ex Walpers; Nicotiana bigelovii (Torrey) S. Watson; N. bigelovii var. wallacei A. Gray; N. multivalvis Lindley; N. plumbaginifolia Viviani var. bigelovii Torrey; N. quadrivalvis var. bigelovii (Torrey) DeWolf; Polydiclis quadrivalvis (Pursh) Miers

Herbs, annual, from basal rosette. Stems single or with multiple robust branches, 3–20 dm, moist, patent, viscid-pubescent. Rosette leaves: petiole length to 1/2 blade; blade elliptic to narrowly ovate, 1–1.5 cm, surfaces usually viscid-pubescent abaxially, glabrous adaxially. Cauline leaves sessile or short-petiolate, congested toward inflorescence; blade ovate to lanceolate, 1–4 cm, gradually decreasing in size and narrower distally, apex acute to acuminate, surfaces coarsely viscid-pubescent. Inflorescences unbranched or few-branched, leafy to bracteate; flowering crepuscular. Pedicels 0.4–1 cm (longer in fruit). Flowers: calyx green, elliptic, 10-ridged (or more in fasciated plants), 0.9–3.5 cm, densely viscid-pubescent, (trichomes occasionally with swollen bases), lobes linear, ± equal, length equaling or sometimes exceeding tube, sinus membranes long, transparent; corolla straight, 2–5 cm (excluding limb), minutely viscid-pubescent externally, tube and throat not well differentiated, white or ivory, or tinged purple externally and oily-glossy, broadly trumpet-shaped, tubular portion from 2 mm diam. at base to 7 mm diam. at mouth (much wider in fasciated varieties), glabrous or minutely puberulent internally, limb spreading, cream to white flushed with grayish purple (externally), stellate to pentagonal, 2–5 cm diam., lobes broadly triangular, acute; stamens unequal, 4 inserted just below mouth, exserted, 1 inserted ca. 1 cm deeper in throat, included; filaments ± equal, 0.3–1 cm, glabrous; style straight, just exceeding stamens. Capsules narrowly ovoid, 1–2.5 cm. Fruiting calyces not tearing at sinuses, completely enclosing capsule. Seeds 0.9 mm. 2n = 48.

Flowering Apr–Oct(–Dec). Dry river beds, washes, gravel bars, mesas, plains, burned areas; 0–600(–2000) m; B.C.; Ariz., Calif., Nev., Oreg., Wash.

Nicotiana quadrivalvis was widely cultivated by western Native American peoples, and prior to European expansion to the west, was grown from Haida Gwaii in British Columbia across the Great Plains to North Dakota and Missouri. The tobacco collected by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in North Dakota was N. quadrivalvis; however, recent collections from this area are only from cultivated plants (for example, Reveal 8376, NY). Plants derived from cultivated forms often have supernumerary flower parts (fasciation) and flowers with more than five petals. These forms are most often collected from northern California northwards; the first collection of this type was made along the Columbia River in Oregon by David Douglas.