Christmas Island Botanical Postage Stamps

Date of issue: 21 August 1991
Designer: Jane Moore, Christmas Island
Printer: Leigh-Mardon Pty Ltd, Melbourne

Part of a series of four stamps on large trees

Plant: Bruguiera gymnorhiza

(Note that the species name is misspelled on the stamp)

Family: RHIZOPHORACEAE

Mangrove,  Tumu Merah

This large mangrove tree reaches 15 m tall with dark fissured bark, and both buttress and knee roots rising from the mud.
It occurs in the unusual freshwater mangrove stand at Hosnies Spring, situated on the first terrace 2 km SW of Steep Point
and about 150 m inland from the Christmas Island coast.

It is usually a common coastal salt-water mangrove species from east Africa through S.E. Asia, PNG, northern Australia and Pacific Islands.