The _Sequoia gigantea_ is more limited in its range than its fog-loving cousin. Its belt is but 250 miles long and extends from the middle of the American River, near Lake Tahoe, to Deer Creek in Tulare County. It is found in the verdant center of the coniferous belt along the middle heights of the Sierra. This zone of finest vegetation is located between the altitudes of 4,600 to 8,000 feet above the sea where the environment insures the most nearly perfect conditions for tree life; where heat is tempered by elevation and the cold of winter is modified by the proximity of a great sunlit valley. The area covered by the Big Tree, however, fails to equal a hundredth part of that which the Redwood occupies. This is due to the fact that the Giant Sequoia does not occur in an uninterrupted belt. Unlike the Redwood, generally speaking, it congregates in groves. Single trees are rarely found alone in solitary grandeur. Preferring the society of its fellows, the Big Tree is almost always found in “family clusters.” Though mingling with Sugar and Yellow Pine, with White Fir and Incense Cedar, these Sequoian groves never lose their identity. The size of the individual Sequoias and their concentration within a definite area are sufficient to set them conspicuously apart from the general forest. Twenty-six of these scattered patches of forest giants sociably growing with trees of shorter pedigree and lesser dignity have been enumerated by Jepson. These groves logically form a northern and a southern group, with the Kings River as the line of division. The northern portion of the Giant Sequoia belt has so diminished in size that it consists of but seven small groves so widely separated that three of the gaps between them are from thirty to forty miles in width. The northernmost group must be called a “grove” by courtesy, since it contains but six trees half of which are less than three feet in diameter. The southernmost, with the exception of the Fresno Grove, is the most remarkable of the northern group. This is the famous Mariposa Grove. In all these northern patches, the Sequoia is an epicure of climate and site. It grows only in locally favored or protected spots where the sunshine is abundant and the soil rich, deep, and moist.