The wildflowers were just beginning to unfurl in the morning sun as a group of about 20 people arrived on Sunday for a guided walk at Van Hoosear Wildflower Preserve.
Thanks to late winter rains, the preserve's green hills and meadows were checkered with plenty of flowers to admire on the walk, one of a few offered by the Sonoma Ecology Center each spring.
"Come up here and check this beautiful thing out," biologist Caitlin Cornwall told the group she was guiding. She leaned into the hillside to touch white, tissue-like petals streaked with light purple veins.
It was a white baby blue eyes, she said. "We don't see this every year. The last time they were out, thank goodness, was the year we brought our potential funders here."
It's an "accident of history" that such rich grasslands and gently rolling hills were conserved 10 years ago with the help of those financial backers, Cornwall said. The 163-acre Van Hoosear preserve is situated just west of Sonoma, surrounded by hilltop vineyards and estates.
But Marilyn Goode, one of three sisters who owned the ranch land, realized it featured spectacular wildflowers and set about finding ways to preserve it.
In 2004, she convinced her family to agree to a conservation easement. The family still owns the property, but the easement ensures that the land will never be developed.
The Sonoma Ecology Center, a nonprofit organization focused on environmental education and conservation in Sonoma Valley, helped broker the deal, which was funded by the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and the California Wildlife Conservation Board. The landowners now partner with the Sonoma Ecology Center to manage the land.
The result, said Cornwall, is rolling hills, open meadows and meandering creeks that closely resemble what Sonoma Valley might have looked like before European settlers arrived.
The land has been impacted by ranching, but less so than many places, which makes it a great place for native wildflowers to grow.
On Sunday, California buttercups exploded from thin, green stems, blue-eyed grass unfurled in the late morning sun,and checkerbloom flowers the magenta tint of a 1980s prom dress waved in a light breeze. Birds chirped wildly, and Carriger Creek, home to steelhead trout, rippled as it ran by.
A cluster of people, mainly from Santa Rosa and Sonoma and toting cameras, guide books and magnifying glasses, listened attentively as Cornwall introduced flower after flower.
"This is one of my favorites," she said, bending toward some blue-eyed grass. Not far away she found a cluster of Douglas' meadowfoam, a five-petaled, yellow and cream-colored flower resembling a sunny side up egg. People murmured appreciatively and snapped pictures.
Cornwall acknowledged that she didn't know all the flowers at the site. She stopped to inspect a tall, thin stalk with tiny white blossoms at the tip. "Maybe this is popcorn flower," she mused. "Or maybe I have no idea what it is."
The group moved on, their feet swishing past the wet leaves of the narrow-leaved mules ear. In a couple of months, those mundane-looking plants will bloom, too, yielding big, canary-colored sunflowers.
Then Cornwall crouched to point out a type of lupine, purple and white at the top and purple and magenta at the bottom. The magenta color tells bees that the flower has already been pollinated, she told the group, eliciting murmurs of surprise.
"I always loved lupine and all its different forms, but I never knew that about the bees," said Kris Gornick of Eldridge.
She moved on to admire another cluster of lupine, this one alongside California poppies. It was her first time to the preserve, and Gornick said it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever been.
She said, "It's like going back in time."
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