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This was the first giant sequoia plant we noticed going down the Black Mountain Trail. This plant probably came from seed from one of the specimens planted after the August 1974 fire, and was not itself planted, since it has no cones, and is considerably shorter than the biggest specimens seen.

This is the first of eight posts of this species from this trip. Three of them may be tagged as "casual" observations since they might have been planted. Five of the posts are almost surely naturalized, and not planted.

Rudi and Mena Schmid did a comprehensive survey of these plants in 2009 and found 158 individuals of all age classes:

This species alien to southern California is regenerating prolifically on Black Mountain, as revealed by multiple age classes, from juveniles (seedlings and saplings) about 20–60 cm tall to young adult trees over 6 m tall, up to about 40 years old, and reproductively mature.

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol30/iss1/4/

See also the comments in the Jepson eFlora treatment about these plants being naturalized:

https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=44178

This was the second giant sequoia plant we noticed going down the Black Mountain Trail. This plant undoubtedly came from seed from one of the specimens planted after the August 1974 fire, and was not itself planted, since it has no cones, and is considerably shorter than the biggest specimens seen.

This is the same plant observed in September 2023 in this iNat post:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/185220492

Rudi and Mena Schmid did a comprehensive survey of these plants in 2009 and found 158 individuals of all age classes:

This species alien to southern California is regenerating prolifically on Black Mountain, as revealed by multiple age classes, from juveniles (seedlings and saplings) about 20–60 cm tall to young adult trees over 6 m tall, up to about 40 years old, and reproductively mature.

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol30/iss1/4/

See also the comments in the Jepson eFlora treatment about these plants being naturalized:

https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=44178

2nd campus record, and only the 3rd for the county, I think. Calls not as high pitched as Pacific. Seen for about 5 seconds, just long enough to tell that it was a tiny brown wren with a short stubby tail and know that I needed to get a recording!