Wildflower Aptitude Test (KPC2009) Mystery Cache

Vaudesir recently suggested on Twitter that a Wildflower Aptitude Test be required for Spring hiking. Well, okay, these aren't all exactly wildflowers, but they'll have to suffice for this puzzle.

Special notes about the 2009 Puzzle ChallengeTo be considered for Fastest Solver points, you must verify your solution with certitude. Because certitude may not properly account for joint solutions, please email me team member names in the case of team solutions to ensure proper point accounting. All "point" scoring is arbitrary anyway, subject to change, at the discretion of the cache owner, and mostly meaningless (unless you really want to be awarded a certain bottle of wine at the December event). The real challenge is just to see whether you can solve all of these caches by the end of the year. To maintain fairness, hints should not be offered by the cache owner or other solvers until the fifteenth of the month.
2009 Puzzle Challenge Solvers
2009 Puzzle Challenge Finders
2009 Puzzle Challenge Event

Special notes about this cache:
Rating the difficulty of a puzzle can often be challenging. For those with the requisite special knowledge or resources, this puzzle may be easy. For others, it may be rather difficult. I believe this to be solvable without the special knowledge, but it may take a lot of work. I'll adjust the rating on April 15th if it proves to be easier (or harder) than my initial guess [Note: Rating was adjusted from difficulty 4.5 to difficulty 5 on April 13th]. The cache is only available from 8am to sunset. It should be a 1-star hide, about a dozen feet from the trail. Please do your best to keep a geotrail from forming to the cache. Bring your own writing instrument.

You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.