Bon tamak or Wild tobacco, Nicotiana plumbaginifolia

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Bon tamak or Wild tobacco (Nicotiana plumbaginifolia, family: Solanaceae) is an erect herb with branches attaining a height of 60-70 cm. There are many branches below rather than the top. The plant grows here and there, specially in sugarcane, corn and sesame fields and on the village street as weed in Bangladesh.


Leaves look like tobacco (nicotiana tabacum) but smaller than that. Leaves are green in color, ovate-oblong or lanceolate-oblong, 25-30 cm long, hairy, viscose.


Flowers are white with light pink shade, corolla tubular, sepals 5, petals 5. Flower grows as single from lea f axil. Flower blooms round the year. 

The fruits are covered with 10 permanent veins. Seeds are small, black in color, upper part wrinkled. 


The hairy perennial plant is a medicinal one. Leaf, stem and seed are used in allergy, phlegm, asthma, rheumatism, worm and louse infection and eye disease.

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