122 _ The Vegetation of Burns. 
able that their first appearance has been made at a recent date. 
These plants produce numerous small black seeds that are not 
furnished with appendages of any sort, and cannot be carried 
by the wind or attached to the coats ofanimals and thus distributed 
far and wide. Of course these plants spring from seed, but was 
the seed deposited upon the soil recently, or had it remained 
there many years and sprouted when the conditions were favor- 
able? If the seeds were dormant in the soil at the time of the 
fire, which burned to the ground all dead leaves and branches, they 
must have been covered by earth so as to have had their vitality 
preserved from the heat. It seems most probable that they were 
brought in after the fire, but in what manner, it is difficult to say. 
These three plants, the poppy, the Calandrinia and Silene, in the 
southern part of California, are especially fond of recently burned 
or cleared localities. A burned region of the Santa Inez mountains 
soon produces innumerable specimens of Papaver Californicum., 
and the hillsides of Santa Cruz Island, from which the Manzanita 
and Ceanothus have been cut, are immediately covered by large 
specimens of Silene multinervia. 
Another unexpected plant is Avynitzkia micromeres, which 
abounds in this burn, as it has been found to do in similar situa- 
tions in Lake County and near Ione in Amador County. 
The young Ceanothus, the hosts of Gilias, Krynitzkias, Phace- 
lias, Hosackias, etc., common in the region, may have come from | 
seed dormant in the soil, fallen into cracks, or may have been in- 
troduced in various ways from the surrounding neighborhood. 
The remarkable luxuriance of the vegetation succeeding fires 
may be due in part to the admixture of wood ashes it receives, but 
the loosening of the soil probably has much more to do with it. 
Every botanical collector in California has observed a similar lux- 
uriance in the growth of certain species of plants on recent enbank- 
ments or in deserted fields that had at some time been plowed. 
NoTE.—Dr. Sereno Watson writes me that Astragalus coccineus, 
published in the May number of this journal, is probably the same 
as his A. grandiflorus, the description of which I had in some man- 
ner overlooked. In this he is probably correct, although one is 
described as having “7 to 9 leaflets,’’ and ‘‘ peduncles shorter than 
the leaves”; the other, ‘‘ 12-1 5 leaflets,’’ and ‘*peduncles consider-— 
ably surpassing the leaves.’’ Vegetative characteristics are, how- 
ever, of minor importance. 1.3.0 
