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: Arenga listeri

Family: ARECACEAE

Christmas Island Palm,  Lister's Palm

A single-stemmed palm tree, 10-20 m tall with pinnate leaves. The small flowers ripen to dense clusters of red ellipsoidal fleshy fruit, 13-17 mm long. The tree only flowers and fruits once in its lifetime, dying shortly afterwards.
This palm is endemic to Christmas Island and the species name honours Joseph Jackson Lister (1857-1927) a Senior Lecturer in Animal Morphology at St John's College, Cambridge, who visited the Island in 1887.