50 Pence - Elizabeth II Candytuft Flowers

Gibraltar's 50 pence flora series of the late 1980s was issued partly as a revenue exercise exploiting collector demand — the territory's small population meant circulation strikes were produced in modest numbers with a significant proportion going directly into collector sets rather than pockets. The candytuft, Iberis gibraltarica, is native to the Rock and found almost nowhere else in Europe outside cultivated gardens, which at least gives this particular choice botanical legitimacy.