recursive commands?

[knubee]

is there a straightforward way to tell bzr to ignore all files (including those
in subdirectories) of a certain pattern?

example: 

  bzr ignore *.*~ does not seem to descend into subdirectories

  bzr -R ignore *.*~ generates an "unknown flag" error

actually, this is just a specific case of the more general question: how to have
bzr commands (e.g., ignore, remove, etc.) applied to files in subdirectories?

thanks.