Sun beams pierce the redwood. Stout Grove what may be the most photogenic section of the forest in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, since the land is flat, and largely free of undergrowth and fallen trunks; instead the ground between the trees is covered only by a low, even carpet of ferns, through which rise numerous healthy, similarly-sized, old-growth redwoods, quite well separated. The limited understory and lack of much dead wood is due to periodic floods along the Smith River, which flows close by just to the north and provides the only background sounds - the grove