48 RARER FLOWERS OF EAST RENFREWSHIRE. 



On the roadside, nearly opposite Queen Mary's Tree at Darnley 

 Toll, I got in the autumn of 1888 one small plant of the yellow 

 melilot (Melilotus officinalis). It is a plant not likely to become 

 fixed in our county. It grows plentifully in the South of England, 

 as does also its white sister. I fell in with a white one, large 

 and beautifully developed, up near Barrhead some five or six 

 years ago. 



Brock Burn and Darnley Glen. — From Darnley Mill let 

 us take the Brock (or Badgers') Burn for Darnley Glen, called on 

 the survey map the Wack Mill Glen. The whole district from 

 here for miles down by Thornliebank and Shaws was anciently 

 called Arden, and this glen above Darnley must have originated 

 the name, for it is the highest "den," indeed the only "den" in the 

 locality. And Darnley looks like a corruption of Arden-ley. It 

 cannot be derived from Dar, an oak, for various reasons, though 

 this ancient forest of Arden was unquestionably an oak forest. 



Darnley Glen, Wack Mill Glen, or Arden, whichever its name 

 ought to be, was famous over the district some years ago for its 

 fine ferns. But this glory has departed in great measure. Fern 

 dealers from the city got scent of the place, and they have cleared 

 out all the better varieties. 



The plant for which the glen is now famous is the herb-paris 

 (Paris quadrifolia), known locally as the " peasemeal plant," from 

 the smell of its leaves when bruised. The bed is pretty much 

 run on at present, this being the nearest station of the plant 

 to Glasgow. But in spite of this severe taxing, paris is spreading 

 vigorously. Like the Hebrews of old, like the Irish of the present 

 day, the more it is oppressed the more it multiplies and grows. 

 The plant is anomalous among plants — a sort of vegetable platypus. 

 It has the characters partly of a monocotyledon and partly of a 

 dicotyledon. It derives its specific name of quadrifolia (say the 

 books) because it has four leaves. But the leaves may number 

 three, four, five, or even six, thereby indicating that the plant is in 

 an active state of transition. It seeds freely enough, but the seeds 

 never germinate. I have gathered dozens of the berries, planted 

 them myself and given them to all the gardeners about to plant, 

 and I have not yet been rewarded with a single seedling. Nor 

 have I ever found a plant in the bed, and I have rooted up many 



