Nicotiana glauca is a shrub of up to 5 m high with glaucous leaves and tubular yellow flowers (Steenkamp van Heerden & van Wyk 2002).

It is an evergreen perennial, glabrous soft--wooded shrub or small tree, up to 6 m tall,with stems that are laxly branched. The leaves are stalked, alternate, elliptical to lanceolate or oval, pointed, bluish or greyish-green. The\nflowers are greenish-yellow, 30 to 40 mm long, many are borne in a lax panicle. The corolla is tubular with a short-lobed limb. The fruit is an egg-shaped, two-valved capsule, 7 to 10 mm long and slightly longer than the persistent papery calyx. It produces a large quantity of tiny seeds, which can be dispersed by wind and water. All plant parts are extremely poisonous (Goodspeed 1954, Moore 1972, Blamey & Grey-Wilson 1998, in Bogdanovic et al. 2006).

The smoking of Nicotiana glauca has been reported and the plant has also been used medicinally and in ethnoveterinary medicine. Warmed leaves are applied to the head to relieve headache, on the throat to relieve pain and put in shoes for painful feet. It has been used as an insecticide, but its use has been discontinued due to\nthe development of more specific and less toxic insecticides (Steenkamp van Heerden & van Wyk 2002).

Nicotiana glauca is distributed in warm temperate, arid and subtropical, dry and moist regions, beside roadsides and along riverbanks, up to altitudes of 3000 m (Goodspeed 1954, Cronk and Fuller 2001, in Bogdanovic et al. 2006). It is widespread throughout South Africa in places where the natural vegetation has been disturbed, such as roadsides and riverbanks (Steenkamp van Heerden & van Wyk 2002).

The Global Compendium of Weeds lists Nicotiana glauca as an agricultural weed, casual alien, cultivation escape, environmental weed, garden weed and noxious weed (GCW 2007). The species is reported as invasive in the western Mediterranean and, recently, in Croatia (Bogdanovic et al. 2006). ;According to Cronk and Fuller (2001) N. glauca belongs\nto the invasive category 3: invading seminatural or natural habitats which are of some conservation interest (in Bogdanovic et al. 2006).
On Ascension Island it may pose a threat to the previously pristine area of the Hummock Point nature reserve. As it establishes well in coastal areas it could affect nesting turtles (Varnham 2006). N. glauca is recorded as invasive in the Canary Islands (Spain) (Brandes & Fritzsch 2002).
Anabasine, the toxic alkaloid of N. glauca has been linked to human fatalities. In the cases documented it was found to be accidentally collected with traditional spinach (marog) (Steenkamp van Heerden & van Wyk 2002). Animal deaths, mainly of ostriches, have also been reported (Steenkamp van Heerden & van Wyk 2002).

Physical: Hand pull or dig out seedlings and young plants.

Chemical: Cut large plants and treat the stumps with herbicide. In South Africa the plants are cut and stumps treated with 2,4,5-T (Cronk & Fuller 2001, in PIER 2007).

Biological: Successful control has been achieved where the plants were sprayed with herbicide and the exposed to the beetle Malabris aculeata (Cronk & Fuller 2001, in PIER 2007).