In the northern groves there are comparatively few young trees or saplings.

But here for every old, storm-stricken giant there are many in all the glory of prime vigor, and for each of these a crowd of eager, hopeful young trees and saplings growing heartily on moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the moist alluvium of meadows, seemingly in hot pursuit of eternal life.
But though the area occupied by the species increases so much from north to south there is no marked increase in the size of the trees.

A height of 275 feet and a diameter near the ground of about 20 feet is perhaps about the average size of full-grown trees favorably situated; specimens 25 feet in diameter are not very rare, and a few are nearly 300 feet high.

In the Calaveras Grove there are four trees over 300 feet in height, the tallest of which by careful measurement is 325 feet.

The largest I have yet met in the course of my explorations is a majestic old scarred monument in the King's River forest.