31 
Brazilian Stink-Grass.—A grass sent under this name to the 
Botanic Gardeus, Sydney, and recommended, from the repute it 
as in Brazil, for | cultivation in Australia, proves to be Melinis 
minutiflora, Beau 
This species TM common in Brazil, where it is mage rapidly to 
st. 
nd n 
found from the south of the Sahara to Natal, dud it occurs in 
Madagascar. Its hc imm names in Brazil ‘Capim mellado ' 
and * Capim gordura’ n honey-grass and fat-grass, and there 
horses and cattle grésdiy: ved it and fatten ; but, adds St. em 
(Aperçu d'un. voyage dans Vintèrieur du Br ésil, p. 8), they 
acquire little vigour. Gardner’s testimon ny is to the same effeci, 
and Doell (in Martius, Flora Brasiliensis, ii., pt. 2, p. 242) repeats 
the statement, adding that possibly the deciduous spikelots are 
the cause. This i is in “agreement with the statemens: contained in 
the report by H.M.’s Consul-General at Rio, that “it can be cut 
for green or dry fodder, but, if so treated, this must be done before 
the seed-heads show themse Ive 
In the coffee-growing disit of Brazil, Capim mellado is often 
sown in order to stifle certain weeds ; hickly s it mat 
on the surface that the most stubborn of them—Anatherum 
bicorne—is ousted (see Van Delden Laérne, Brazil and Java; Reports 
on Coffee-culture, London, 1885, p. 2 
ow it grows in these districts Sir Charles en. has 
described —— Fragments, Tonton, 1883, p. 103). “ There 
are two plants," he writes, “ which their extr RE 
abundance, and by the way in which me domineer over the 
of the vegetation, sis fail to force themselves on one's en 
tion. One is the large Brake Eae or eina Kaulf.) ; the 
other a small fasi Ob pid mellado. The herbage of the latter is 
account of the way in which it invaded the Province o inas, 
spreading farther and farther wherever the woods were cut down 
and burned, and smothering all the smaller and weaker planis till 
it reigned alone over extensive tracts. I saw little of it in the 
‘ natural ’ campos to the south of Ouro Preto; it seemed (as St. 
Hilaire remarked) to establish itself only where the soil kad been 
stripped of its previous clothing of wood.” 
Two forms, — ng in the colour of the spikelets and in 
duration, are said to exist ; of these that with violet is preferre 
that with pallid blaues, The violet form, in fact, replaces the 
pallid when the two are sown together. : 
