Saving New Hampshire’s rarest plants from extinction
CONCORD, N.H. — The plant is so rare that it only exists in three locations on Earth. All are within an 18-kilometer stretch of the Connecticut River, and two of the places it grows are in New Hampshire. The third is right across the river in Vermont.
It’s called Jesup’s milk-vetch, and it’s a type of small pea plant that’s in danger of extinction. It landed it on the federally endangered list in 1987.
Now, Michael Piantedosi, director of conservation at the Massachusetts nonprofit Native Plant Trust, is going to great lengths to preserve the plant, and those efforts kick into overdrive during the summer months.
Piantedosi said he’s growing a few hundred plants in a greenhouse. Starting in May, he’ll use some of those to augment the existing populations, while others will go to two new sites in New England to try to expand the plant’s reach.
Because the plants grow so close together, “one major disaster, a flood event, could spell extinction for this species,” Piantedosi said.
He said climate change has challenged the plants with higher-than-usual summer temperatures, and the flooding last summer also did some damage, submerging the plants underwater for days at a time. They grow on calciumrich rocky limestone outcroppings over the Connecticut River.
But Piantedosi remains optimistic about the conservation efforts, in spite of losses last year.
The Native Plant Trust’s efforts have found success with another rare and endangered plant, high in the alpine alpine zone of the White Mountains: Robbins’ cinquefoil. The perennial alpine plant with yellow flowers only grows in two places on Earth, both high in those mountains.
“We had a seed bank of Robbins’ cinquefoil. We learned how to grow it, and in doing that, we were able to augment the existing population, increase its ability to self-seed, and return every year in slightly higher numbers,” he said.
Now, the organization is embarking on a research project to learn how it can store this rare plant in a freezer so that it would still be viable 100 years from now.
“Part of what gives life its beauty and its value and its [excitement] is the diversity of life and having a diversity of plants,” Piantedosi said.