rank-growing

The Sound of Wavesを読んでいます。今日取り上げる表現も見慣れた単語ですが、私の知って いる意味ではありません。
Halfway along the beach towered a huge rock called Hachijo Isle, as tall as a two- storied house, and, just now, among the rank-growing vines on its summit, there were four or five playful urchins, waving their hands and shouting something.
"rank" を辞書で見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: showing vigorous and profuse growth: rank weeds
・Cambridge English Dictionary: used to describe plants that grow too fast or too thickly, or an area covered by these: The abandoned garden was rank with weeds.
何故この様な意味があるのかOnline Etymology Dictionaryを見ました。以下はその抜粋です。
Old English ranc "proud, overbearing, showy," ... In reference to plant growth, "vigorous, luxuriant, abundant, copious" it is recorded from c. 1300.
Sense evolved in Middle English to "large and coarse" (c. 1300), then, via notion of "excessive and unpleasant," to "corrupt, loathsome, foul" (mid-14c.), perhaps from influence of Middle French rance "rancid."
悪臭の "rank" とも関係があるのが分かりました。
この意味の"rank" も "1/19/2009 に取り上げていましたね。
The Sound of Wavesを読み終えました。ハッピーエンドで良かった。またその内に他の三島作品を読もうと思います。