I was in the Sierra foothills about a month ago for my usual trip to see the wildflowers. Last year I was very dismayed to see that virtually all vegetation in one area had been cleared in on both sides of the road to a depth of about 20 feet. This went on for some miles, and was probably for fire control. In a completely different area, similar clearing of manzanita had taken place. This spring there was a mass blooming of Calochortus tolmiei in one place and C. monophyllus in another. In both areas (which I know very well) I have never seen blooming like this, and in some places I have never seen them blooming at all. This was not a good year for bulb flowers due to the two month dry spell we had, so these two areas really stood out. It has been postulated that mass blooming of bulbs after fire could be due to smoke penetrating the ground, or to nutrients from the ash, but there were neither, just the removal of dense shrubby vegetation, so maybe it isn't anything mysterious at all, just the removal of competition, thereby making available to the existing bulbs more moisture and nutrients in the soil. I went back this weekend for seed, and another thing struck me was that the percentage of plants that set seed in colonies like this is very small. The flowering was amazing, but seed was fairly sparse, not even 10% of the individuals producing seed. the C. monophyllus (it is not spotted) literally covers square miles in this area, and the C. tolmiei is almost as abundant. Diana