5<3 RARER FLOWERS OF EAST RENFREWSHIRE. 



sweet breath of "bashful fifteen." Above, the spirit of nature 

 holds sway; below, the burn is deformed by the spirit of the age 

 — commerce, money. May the stream of our lives never pass 

 through a Barrhead ! 



The Aurs comes from Glanderston Dam at the foot of Craig of 

 Carnock. In all the dams up here in Neilston parish (and their 

 name is legion) you will find a few specimens of the fresh-water 

 purslane plant {Pcplis Portuld). It grows about two inches high, 

 with small ruddy flowers borne in the axils of the leaves. It is 

 difficult to see and difficult to get at except when the dams are 

 low. A little below Glanderston Dam the Aurs enters a marshy 

 piece of ground intersected by narrow ditches full of water, and 

 the whole marsh is, in the season, one golden mass of wild musk 

 {Mimulus luteus). Linnaeus's historic field of broom was nothing 

 to this. The plant has been here for ten or twelve years at least. 

 It cannot spread up the stream, and the polluted condition of the 

 burn down by Barrhead checks its spread in that direction. The 

 scented musk plant {Mimulus mosckatus), a near relative of the 

 yellow mimulus and a common pot plant in cottage windows, bids 

 fair also soon to add itself to the list of our wild plants. The ponds 

 at Loudon, Ayrshire, contain lots of it. There is a small syke up 

 behind the hamlet of Pokeston, in Mearns parish, which will soon 

 be overrun by it. The streamlet, a mere ditch, is completely 

 hidden in summer by the long grass ; but the strong musk odour 

 betrays the presence of the plant at a considerable distance to 

 anyone passing on the lee. The " rin " originates in a spring-well 

 which supplies Pokeston with water, and this fact explains how 

 the plant comes to be here. 



Below the mimulus swamp the left bank of the Aurs is upright 

 and rocky; and here are some beautiful patches of Ehrhart's 

 water-figwort {Scrophularia JEhrharti). The plants root in the 

 clear stream and grow close against the perpendicular bank, 

 and as high — five or six feet. Descending the stream the plant 

 occurs again near Darnley House in a ditch of clear water which 

 communicates with the Aurs. Aurs and Brock join the Levern, 

 and the Levern empties itself into the Cart, and the banks of the 

 latter in Hawkhead Wood are literally covered with this beautiful 

 and rare plant. Up all the burns which feed the Cart may be 

 found beds of the pretty snake-weed {Polygonum Bistortd), with 

 its beautifully twisted heads and strangely distorted roots. 



