Its specific epithet clevelandii honors 19th-century San Diego–based plant collector and lawyer Daniel Cleveland.

[1] It is native to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States in California and Arizona, where it grows in the Sonoran Desert, Colorado Desert, and in chaparral of the coastal canyons of the Peninsular Ranges and the Channel Islands of California.

Nicotiana clevelandii is a glandular and sparsely hairy annual herb producing a slender stem up to about 60 centimetres (24 in) in maximum height.

The leaf blades may be 18 centimetres (7.1 in) long, the lower ones borne on petioles.

The inflorescence bears white or green-tinged flowers with tubular throats around 2 centimeters long, their bases enclosed in pointed sepals which are unequal in length.