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 polyodon

Family: ASPLENIACEAE

Sickle Spleenwort,  Mare's Tail Fern

A frequent and attractive epiphytic fern in the rainforest on the plateau and upper
terrace. It usually forms the largest specimens when growing on the water-retentive
root-balls of Asplenium nidus.
It occurs from Madagascar through India to the Philippines and mainland Australia.