Computation of next hops within layer two networks

A device includes one or more network interfaces to receive layer two (L2) communications from an L2 network having a plurality of L2 devices; and a control unit to forward the L2 communications in accordance with forwarding information defining a plurality of flooding next hops. Each of the flooding next hops stored by the control unit specifies a set of the L2 devices within the L2 network to which to forward L2 communications in accordance with a plurality of trees, where each of the trees has a different one of the plurality of L2 devices as a root node. The control unit of the device computes a corresponding one of flooding next hops for each of the trees using only a subset of the trees without computing all of the trees having all of the different L2 network devices as root nodes.