[Crown Copyright Reserved. 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLE T IN 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
No. 10] [7922 
XLVI—EFWATAKALA GRASS. 
(Mehnis minutiflora, Beauv.) 
An interesting discovery that may prove of economic 
and Mr. Dawe was consequently devoting much of his attention 
to this object. In the course of his travels he noticed a grass 
which was sought after by domesticated animals for fodder 
and'yet at the same time appeared to be inimical or at any rate 
distasteful to the tsetse fly, a scourge against which little headway 
has so far been made in West Africa. This grass Mr. Dawe 
recognised as being similar to, if no ie ae with, the 
“Gordura” of Brazil or the “Yar fodder grass of 
Colombia, in which country he had had ” pct experience 
of its utility for fattening stock.* 
In both South American countries it is considered an 
excellent green fodder and appears to have the further property 
of being distasteful to ticks probably owing to the volatile oil 
exuded by the hairs on its leaves. 
A previous notice of this grass appeared in Kew Bull., 1900, 
p. 31, where, under the heading of “ Brazilian Stink Grass 
its introduction to the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, with a view 
to its distribution as a fodder grass, is described. It had been 
hoped that its property of supplanting forest and scrub by its 
thick mat-like growth would render it as valuable to Australia 
as it had proved in South America, but no further reports have 
come ie hand as to any experiments which may have been made. 
e specimens from the Lower Congo, submitted to Kew 
in 1921 by Mr. Dawe under the African names of “ Lakamboma ”’ 
or “ Efwatakala,” the latter name being in more general use 
inland, were determined as Melinis minutiflora, f. inermis. From 
the field notes accompanying the collections the grass is shown 
to be widely distributed in Portuguese Congo, not only on the 
plains but more especially on the higher ground from 2500 to 
* For comparative analysis as a fodder see Bull. Imp. Inst. Vol. XX, 
No. 3, p. 300. 
2 (78)19003 Wt 122—P23 1000 12/22 E&s A 
