Lagerstroemia speciosa is a flowering plant that belongs to the Lythraceae family of plants. The plant is distributed in the Tropical Himalaya and Assam, and Western and Eastern Ghats regions. Commonly the plant is known as the Queen’s flowers, Queen’s crape myrtle or the pride of India. The plant is used in medicine for its protective effects against a number of health conditions, and is particulalrly useful as an anti-diabetic and antibacterial agent. The plant is reported to possess a high antioxidant capacity and this may relate to a high phenolic content within various tissues of the plant. In one study, seed extracts of the plant were assayed to determine their total phenolic content, and this was found to be relatively high. When the extracts were used in free radical scavenging experiments they were found to be significantly able to quench free radical reactions. These results suggest that the seed extract confer significant antioxidant effects and this may explain the mode of action of the plant in some of its medicinal uses.
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