(1970)  Page(s) 21-22, 160.  
 
The Effect of Fire: The summer-dried hills and mountains of California are unusually susceptible to devastating visitations of this element [fire] and in the form of brush and forest fires it has peridocially swept over the valleys and lower slopes for ages. The element of fire has, therefore, become a factor, at least of secondary importance, in the evolutionary development of the plant associations where it has been most prevalent, and in such associations, only the plants that are able to recover or reproduce between recurring fires have survived....This is especially true of the chaparral, for the shrubs that are found in it appear promptly after a burn either as vigorous crown sprouts or root sprouts or as fast-growing seedlings. Many...develop fast enough to flower and fruit during the first or second season of growth following a fire...After the extensive Marin County burn of 1945, the following trees and shrubs were observed to sprout from crowns or underground stems:...Rosa spithamea var. sonomensis
R. spithamea Wats. var. sonomensis (Greene) Jeps. Not uncommon on high rocky ridges and slopes in the chaparral; Mount Tamalpais (Matt Davis Trail, Rocky Ridge Fire Trail, Lake Lagunitas); Carson country; San Rafael Hills. -R. sonomensis Greene. When, between fires, the chaparral shrubs grow tall and thick, the Sonoma rose is not conspicuous and rarely blooms; but in the ashes of a burn the little rose is attractively floriferous and its fragrance is something to be remembered.