BIG TREE
(_Sequoia gigantea_)
Between the heavy pine and Silver Fir belts we find the Big Tree, the
king of all the conifers in the world, "the noblest of a noble race." It
extends in a widely interrupted belt from a small grove on the middle
fork of the American River to the head of Deer Creek, a distance of
about 260 miles, the northern limit being near the thirty-ninth
parallel, the southern a little below the thirty-sixth, and the
elevation of the belt above the sea varies from about 5000 to 8000 feet.
From the American River grove to the forest on King's River the species
occurs only in small isolated groups so sparsely distributed along the
belt that three of the gaps in it are from forty to sixty miles wide.
But from King's River southward the Sequoia is not restricted to mere
groves, but extends across the broad rugged basins of the Kaweah and
Tule rivers in noble forests, a distance of nearly seventy miles, the
continuity of this part of the belt being broken only by deep canons.
The Fresno, the largest of the northern groves, occupies an area of
three or four square miles, a short distance to the southward of the
famous Mariposa Grove.
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