Student fellowship to focus on rare White Mountain plants

PLYMOUTH, N.H. (AP) - A Plymouth State University student has been awarded a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship for her study of two rare alpine plants in the White Mountains.

Hannah Vollmer, of Thornton, is focusing on the dwarf mountain cinquefoil, or Robbins’ cinquefoil, which exists nowhere else in the world but above the tree line in the White Mountains, and sibbaldia, which is typically found in Arctic regions.

Alpine plants in the White Mountains are remnants of glaciers that receded more than 13,000 years ago. Vollmer’s research on the dwarf mountain cinquefoil seeks to provide evidence of the plant cloning itself by producing seeds without fertilization, or of genetic diversity and its evolution. Her research will also determine if the sibbaldia that grow in the White Mountains are genetically related to the sibbaldia plant found in Arctic climates, including Norway, Siberia and Alaska.

Vollmer is the first Plymouth State University student to earn the fellowship. She’s also one of two grant recipients from the New England Botanical Club this year. She also received a grant from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for this research.