ABSTRACT
The origins of the tobacco plant are lost. Its history starts around eight thousand years ago, when two species of the plant, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, were dispersed by Amerindians through both the southern as well as the northern American continent (Wilbert 1991:179). Modern commercial tobacco is descended directly from the latter species. Until the very end of the fifteenth century no one outside the American continents had any knowledge of the cultivated varieties of this plant. Today it is grown in more than 120 countries, and its manufactured products are known to virtually everyone.
