_C_. The common names of tobacco confirm its American origin. If there had been any indigenous species in the old world there would be a great number of different names; but, on the contrary, the Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Indian, Persian, etc., names are derived from the American names, _petum_, or _tabak_, _tabok_, _tamboc_, slightly modified. It is true that Piddington gives Sanskrit names, _dhumrapatra_ and _tamrakouta_,[694] but Adolphe Pictet informs me that the first of these names, which is not in Wilson’s dictionary, means only leaf for smoking, and appears to be of modern composition; while the second is probably no older, and seems to be a modern modification of the American names. The Arabic word _docchan_ simply means smoke.[695] Lastly, we must inquire into the two so-called Asiatic _Nicotianæ_. The one, called by Lehmann _Nicotiana chinensis_, came from the Russian botanist Fischer, who said it was Chinese. Lehmann said he had seen it in a garden. Now, it is well known how often an erroneous origin is attributed to plants grown by horticulturists, and besides, from the description, it seems that it was simply _N. Tabacum_, of which the seeds had perhaps come from China.[696] The second species is _N. persica_, Lindley, figured in the _Botanical Register_ (pl. 1592), of which the seeds had been sent from Ispahan to the Horticultural Society of London, as those of the best tobacco cultivated in Persia, that of Schiraz. Lindley did not observe that it corresponded exactly to _N. alata_, drawn three years before by Link and Otto[697] from a plant in the gardens at Berlin. The latter was grown from seed sent by Sello from Southern Brazil. It is certainly a Brazilian species, with a white elongated corolla, allied to _N. suaveolens_ of New Holland. Thus the tobacco cultivated sometimes in Persia along with the common species, is of American origin, as I declared in my _Geographical Botany_ of 1855. I do not understand how this species was introduced into Persia. It must have been from seed taken from a garden, or brought by chance from America, and it is not likely that its cultivation is common in Persia, for Olivier and Bruguière, and other naturalists who have observed the tobacco plantations in that country, make no mention of it. From all these reasons I conclude that no species of tobacco is a native of Asia. They are all American, except _N. suaveolens_ of New Holland, and _N. fragrans_ of the Isle of Pines to the south of New Caledonia.