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Branchton is a hillside community on the Wemyss Bay railway line between Greenock and Inverkip, situated on the rising ground above the Clyde shore where improved pasture gives way quickly to moorland on the Renfrewshire plateau. The settlement grew in the early twentieth century as housing spread outward from Greenock along the railway corridor; its railway station, one of the smaller halts on the Inverclyde network, still serves passengers for Greenock and Wemyss Bay. The Glenburn Reservoir lies on the high ground above the settlement, and the moorland and rough grazing of the Renfrewshire Heights begins within a short walk of the upper streets. The Spango Burn runs through the valley east of Branchton toward Greenock.

Sycamore is the dominant May flow tree throughout Inverclyde, lining the Victorian and Edwardian streets of Greenock and Port Glasgow and covering the steeper hillsides above the town in semi-natural woodland. White clover on the amenity grasslands, parks and road verges of the coastal towns is the main mid-summer crop from June through August. Hawthorn on the hedgerows of the agricultural land between Kilmacolm and Inverkip provides a strong May blossom flow. The Renfrewshire Heights above Greenock and Inverkip carry extensive heather moorland from mid-July through September — one of the most accessible upland heather grounds from the Glasgow conurbation, and a traditional destination for beekeepers moving colonies in late July. Himalayan balsam is establishing on the Kip Water and Gryfe corridors. Bramble on old quarry and railway embankment sites around Greenock provides a useful late-summer supplement. Gorse and broom on the hillside rough grazing above the coastal towns provides a sustained spring flow from April. Ivy on the older stone buildings and Victorian tenements closes the calendar in October.