Tobacco Blossom

The genus Nicotiana consists of herbaceous plants and shrubs in the family Solanaceae that are indigenous to the Americas, Australia, Southwestern Africa and the South Pacific. The genus takes its name from Jean Nicot, a French ambassador to Portugal who in 1560 sent tobacco and seeds to the French court, where it was promoted as a medicine.

N. tabacum is native to tropical and subtropical America and is believed to be a hybrid of Nicotiana sylvestris, N. tomentosiformis, and possibly N. otophora. Its scented inflorescences are multi-branched panicles. The coronet is white, pink or red, and the corolla tube is greenish-cream, pink or red. The flowers of N. sylvestris are tubular and white. Several Nicotiana species are grown as ornamental plants, often under the name of flowering tobacco. In several ornamental species, the sweet-smelling flowers open in the evening to be visited by hawkmoths and other pollinators.

The tobacco flower is removed in a step called topping, done when the pink flowers develop and before the leaves are systematically harvested. In broad-leaf tobaccos, topping removes the flower buds and some of the upper leaves to stimulate the development of the remaining lower leaves, which generates discarded flower waste. The flowers of Oriental tobacco are left in the fields after leaf harvest. In the mature plant, 5% of the total nicotine is in the flowers, against 64% in the leaves.

Caryophyllene was the predominant compound in the headspace of the flowers of three tobacco lines and a major component in the fourth. In the headspace of live N. tabacum flowers, before any extraction, the major volatiles are caryophyllene (109 to 870.5 ng/g flower) and linalool (301.8 ng/g). Those of N. sylvestris are caryophyllene (838.5 ng/g) and benzyl alcohol (403.0 ng/g). N. sylvestris and N. tomentosiformis, which are putative progenitors of tobacco, yielded several compounds also found in tobacco flower headspace. The total volatile yield of the flowers of five other Nicotiana species ranged from 88 ppb for N. rustica to 2424 ppb for N. sylvestris. In the flower concrete with a very strong green odor and slight floral and honey-like undertones, some odor-impact components might include linalool, linalyl acetate, solanone, limonene and syringaldehyde. The concrete of the Oriental type of N. tabacum flowers is dominated by aliphatic hydrocarbons, which make up 63.6% of it, with n-tetratriacontane at 15.0% and n-triacontane at 13.3%. Its major volatiles are 3-methylpentanoic acid (3-methylvaleric acid, C₆H₁₂O₂) at 12.2%, with a herbaceous, cheese-like, animal and sharp odor, and tributyl acetylcitrate (C₂₀H₃₄O₈) at 10.0%, with a faint, sweet and herbaceous odor. The yellow-green color of the flower concretes is related to the extraction of natural pigments and their derivatives, and their waxy texture is due to the high proportion of extracted hydrocarbons. In the N. glutinosa flower concrete, the diterpene alcohol sclareol (C₂₀H₃₆O₂) was the major diterpene, at 25.9% of the total ion current. Labdane diterpenes make up 64.2% of its identified composition, and its major constituents include 3-α-hydroxy-manool at 16.3% and 13-epimanool at 14.9%.

In tobacco leaves from Korea, the USA, Greece and Turkey, solanone was the most abundant essential-oil compound analysed, whatever the variety and locality. Solanone has the formula C₁₃H₂₂O. Megastigmatrienone is the key flavor compound in tobacco, whose aroma is due to different volatile compounds. Tobacco absolute from the leaves is a separate material: a dark brown, semi-solid mass of strong, almost repulsive odor, faintly reminiscent of cigar tobacco, prepared from the residues of tobacco leaves unusable for cigarette manufacture and registered as Nicotiana tabacum L. leaf absolute (CAS 8037-19-2).

Regulation

N. tabacum flower oil and flower extract appear in neither Annex II (banned cosmetic ingredients) nor Annex III (restricted cosmetic ingredients) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009.

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