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 The rarest of the Tabakov is considered to be the heart-leaved species. He survived only on the island of Mas-a-Tierra, where the sailor A. Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe) was serving his exile.
Robinson Crusoe Island lies 350 miles west of Valparaiso, Chile. Botanists got there only in 1854, when this species was described.
Heart-leaved tobacco is an unsightly, skinny shrub just taller than a person. It has large, heart-shaped corduroy white leaves and many red-purple flowers. At the time of flowering, it is visible from afar, and then, as it were, disappears from the eyes. Perhaps that is why subsequent botanists, no matter how much they looked for, could not find it.
More than sixty years have passed. And only in 1917, the director of the Swedish Botanical Garden, K. Scottsberg, during the expedition, met this tobacco again and even collected the seeds.
But for some reason, plants from these seeds that grew in other places turned out to be seedless dummies. Either the climate did not fit, or there were other reasons - it is unknown.
Time passed ... Many scientists went to get these seeds, to the island of Robinson Crusoe. All their attempts were unsuccessful. Some returned with sad news: the last copies of tobacco were eaten by goats. Others, returning empty-handed, blamed the birds on hummingbirds.
Good luck came only shortly before the Second World War. It was decided to storm the most inaccessible rocks, which can only be landed from the sea. The hikers took with them full climbing equipment: iron hooks and even rope ladders.
Under the roar of the waves, they climbed the slippery stones, risking falling into the ocean. They reached the flat top, and then, at last, the hearty tobacco appeared before them. White velvety leaves and red tubular flowers with a violet shade.
Of course, not only bright appearance made me look for tobacco overseas, over the mountains. Also an incomparable smell. It is felt only at dusk. Connoisseurs claim that no plant can match the aroma of ordinary garden tobacco. However, we still don't know who this fragrance is for? Nature does not prepare it for us. She relied on pollinators. Those that fly at dusk.
But who are they? And do we have? Or only in the distant homeland of a charming plant?
Trying to improve fragrant tobacco, Moscow botanists decided to cross it with a distant relative - the Yellow Tobacco tree. Is it tempting to imagine scented tobacco not in the form of grass, but in the form of a tree with a three-story house? This is the kind of growth that the Yellow Tobacco tree can be in its homeland, Argentina. It has a gray, steel barrel. Rough and thick, like rubbery, oval leaves. The flowers are so abundant that the branches bend like an apple tree in a good harvest year. There are also disadvantages, of course: the flowers are small, no larger than cucumber.
The same yellow. And completely ... odorless!
For our century, the Tobacco tree has proved to be very suitable. Under the pressure of an ax and fire, it does not disappear and does not even thin out. On the contrary, it vigorously settles using a variety of modes of transport.
Australians, frightened at one time by the invasion of prickly pear cacti, are more wary of the Yellow Tree. They even offer a reward to those who find the means to eradicate the alien.
 However, in order to eradicate, one must know the life of this plant. What made him successful on different continents? The seeds provided the success. Smaller than poppy. Light as dust. Dark as gunpowder. The rind is rough, rough like sandpaper. It is not for nothing that they so easily cling to the fur of animals, even to the feathers of birds that follow by. When large herds of cattle began to be driven to new pastures in Australia, tobacco seeds also traveled with them. And if suitable conditions were encountered along the way, the falling seeds germinated.But this is within the continent. What about intercontinental exchange? Here transport is used differently.
Tobacco is a moisture lover. It settles more along the rivers. During floods, seeds are carried down to the ocean. At the mouth of the river they are thrown out by the wave ashore. Here the seeds must be transferred to another, sea transport. An ocean liner arrives. Brings cargo. In order not to go empty, which is dangerous, it takes ballast. Fills the holds with coastal soil. It contains tobacco seeds. They will be unloaded on another continent. There, a transfer to an animal-bird transport, which will carry the aliens deep into the continent. In this way, the Yellow Tree has long penetrated the Karoo Desert in South Africa. And already quite luxuriously flaunts in the Namib desert. And no one there even suggests that it is from distant Argentina ...
Tobacco has one more feature that helps it survive. The entire genus of tobacco is reliably protected against consumers. The main weapon is nicotine. Some species also have another alkaloid - anabasine. He will even be stronger. For the production of nicotine, tobacco spends ten percent of organic substances!
Nicotine protection works, although not one hundred percent, but not a single quadruped and not a single bird dares to eat tobacco greens. Even omnivorous goats. People noticed this long ago and tried to use it to their advantage. At the beginning of the century, they were looking for a way to control the moth at the apple tree. Not a single remedy helped. One gardener pollinated apple trees with tobacco dust. Not only the moth disappeared from him, but all other pests as well. The gardeners also took the initiative. We used tobacco dust on cabbage and also got rid of all kinds of evil spirits. And what is especially valuable is that the dust was worth nothing. The tobacco factories did not know what to do with it. Sales were now secured.
And recently tobacco has found another rather unexpected application. Scientists have been trying to find a sensitive instrument for assessing air pollution at airports. Many toxic gases accumulate there - carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide. And especially ozone. The crops that are sown on the airfield are not particularly affected. Tobacco turned out to be the most sensitive. However, where planes took off more often, tobacco was affected less often. What's the matter? It turned out that it is not aviation that pollutes the air at airports, but the cars that serve the airfield. Tobacco helped figure it out!
A. Smirnov. Tops and roots
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