Southern Star

A variety of pipe-weed grown in the Southfarthing of the Shire, and considered among the best grown there, alongside Old Toby and Longbottom Leaf. The cultivation of pipe-weed in the Shire began with Tobold Hornblower in about the Shire-year 1070 (or III 2670), and so Southern Star was likely a descendant of the original Leaf plants that Tobold brought there from the Bree-land.

Southern Star, in common with all the pipe-weed growing in the southern regions of the Shire, was a variety of the plant known today as tobacco or Nicotiana, a plant with flowers possessing flowers with a distinctive five-pointed star shape. Though the 'Star' of Southern Star's name is not directly explained, it seems more than plausible that it derived from this star-shaped flower of the pipe-weed plant.