Christmas Island Botanical Postage Stamps

Date of issue: 16 August 1989
Designer: Kerrie Rockett, Monbulk
Printer: Walsall Security Printers Ltd

Part of a series of four stamps on indigenous ferns and fern-like plants

Plant: Asplenium nidus

Family: ASPLENIACEAE

Bird's Nest Fern

This fern with its rosette of broad undivided fronds is abundant in the rainforest,
especially on the plateau where it can form very large specimens. It is most frequent
in the canopy and on emergent trees such as Syzygium nervosum, Planchonella nitida and
Hernandia ovigera.
It occurs from India through southern China to Australia and Hawaii.