158 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



cording to Dr. Jepson, are recorded, though the 

 average height is probably not much over 200 feet. 

 The enormous trees that are situated in the famous 

 grove near Felton a few miles from Santa Cruz on 

 the railway line to San Francisco, and are visited 

 annually by thousands of tourists who never regret 

 the stop, are redwoods Sequoia sempervirens al- 

 though they are locally known as Big Trees. What 

 is ordinarily called the Big Tree, however, is the 

 redwood's first cousin, Sequoia gigantea, the second 

 species of this remarkable, aristocratic genus. It 

 is found in isolated groves only on the western slope 

 of the Sierra Nevada, at an elevation of 5,000 to 

 8,000 feet throughout a range of about 250 miles, 

 extending from Placer to Tulare County. The aver- 

 age height of living specimens is about 275 feet, and 

 the diameter about 20 feet, a yard from the base. 

 The maximum height given by Dr. Jepson, is 325 

 feet, 1 or a trifle less than the tallest specimens of 

 the redwood, but taken as a class the Big Trees are 

 the larger, both as to height and girth. Their huge 

 trunks, sometimes thirty feet in diameter at the 

 butt, enveloped in bark a foot to a foot and a half 

 thick, rise a clean hundred to two hundred feet to 

 the branches, and their groves are among the most 



i This isjn the Calaveras Grove. Mr. E. H. Wilson of the Arnold 

 Arboretum, gives an estimated greater height to certain fallen trees 

 one possibly 425 feet. 



