Upon lands that native Ohlone peoples had lived for thousands of years, Europeans arrived. The Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza camped in what is now Cupertino, California in 1776. Over next decades Spanish settlers trekked between San Francisco and Monterey along what would become the Mission Road. Travelling with them were European cultivars of grape vines and fruit trees. Since Santa Clara Valley has the same climate as southern Spain, those crops transplanted quite easily from Europe. Grapes were brought by the first Catholic missionaries so that sacramental wine, a required component in religious practices of the colonizing Spanish, could be grown. Apricots perform particularly well here with a major crop mentioned in the records at Mission Santa Clara in 1792. By the 1840s, this part of Alta California boasted a population of over 1000. The discovery of gold in California would forever change the social fabric of the region by bringing in massive numbers of settlers from other parts of Europe. The 1860 census records a population over 12,000 in Santa Clara Valley.
From the last quarter of the 19th into the 20th century farmers from Croatia, Italy, and France would remake the landscape. Vast swathes of the flat alluvial plains of Santa Clara County were transformed into large family orchards dedicated to the monoculture production of flowering stone fruit such as apricots, peaches and cherries. Almonds and walnuts were also widely planted.
By the early 20th century, the acknowledged health benefits of prunes with its laxative qualities added a fourth staple crop, that of the French plum. Thanks to the hard work and marketing brilliance of Louis Pellier, a French orchardist considered the "Father of the California prune," the agricultural landscape evolved as plums were widely planted in the north facing slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Places like Saratoga, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Campbell became renowned for fruit production. In the 1920s and 1930s it was common for Japanese tourists to visit and enjoy the fragrant sights of blossoming trees in Spring. And as late as the 1950s, bus tours of the blossoms were stll popular.
Thus Karpophoros represents the agricultural fecundity of this area and we honor and worship the gods & goddesses that help bring about that fertility to Northern California. That quintessential spiritual energy has been immortalized in the famous poem,
"The Valley of Heart's Delight."