''Lagerstroemia speciosa'' (giant crepe-myrtle, Queen's crepe-myrtle, banabá plant, or pride of India) is a species of ''

Lagerstroemia ''Lagerstroemia'' (), commonly known as crape myrtle (also spelled crepe myrtle or crêpe myrtle), is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia ...

'' native to tropical southern Asia. It is a deciduous tree with bright pink to light purple flowers.

Etymology

The genus ''Lagerstroemia'' was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. The name ''Lagerstroemia'' recognizes Magnus von Lagerstroem, a Swedish naturalist who provided specimens from the East for Linnaeus.

Names

* English : Pride of India, Queen Crepe Myrtle * bn, জারুল () * hi, जरुल () * id, Bungur * pam, Banába * mr, ताम्हण (), (), () * as, এজাৰ () * tl, Banaba * vi, Bằng lăng nước * mal, മണിമരുത്,പൂമരുത് * th, อินทนิล () * Tamil :கதலி (மலர்) * ms, Bungor raya

Growth

It is a small to medium-sized

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

growing to tall, with smooth, flaky bark. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

, oval to elliptic, long and broad, with an acute apex. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are produced in erect

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

s long, each flower with six white to purple petals long. The flowers in this plant blooms only once in a year at the peak of summer.

Cultivation and uses

It is grown in South East Asia, India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. It is also widely cultivated as an

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that i ...

in tropical and subtropical areas. The leaves of the banabá and other parts are used widely in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan as a tea preparation. Banabá herb is one of the 69 herbal plants promoted by the Philippine Department of Health (DOH). In Vietnam the plant's young leaves are consumed as vegetables, and its old leaves and mature fruit are used in traditional medicine for reducing glucose in blood. The seeds have narcotic properties.

Chemistry

Chemical compounds that have been isolated from the extract include

corosolic acid Corosolic acid is a pentacyclic triterpene acid found in ''Lagerstroemia speciosa''. It is similar in structure to ursolic acid Ursolic acid (sometimes referred to as urson, prunol, malol, or 3β-hydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid), is a pentacyc ...

, lager-stroemin, flosin B, and reginin A.

Recognition

Pride of India or ''Tāmhan'' in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

is recognised as the state flower of the state of Maharashtra in India.

In Buddhism

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

, this plant is said to have been used as the tree for achieved enlightenment, or Bodhi by the eleventh

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

("Paduma – පදුම"), and the twelfth Buddha (Naarada – නාරද). The plant is known as මුරුත (Murutha) in Sinhala and Mahaasona – මහාසොණ in Sanskrit.

Gallery

Image:Fruit, leaves & Drongo I IMG 5962.jpg, Fruit, leaves & black drongo (

Kolkata, West Bengal Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

, India) Image:Flowers & leaves I IMG 1864.jpg, Flowers and leaves (

, India) Image:Dried Fruits I IMG 1380.jpg, Dried fruits (

, India) Image:Dried Fruit I IMG 3279.jpg, Dried fruits (

, India) Image:Lagerstroemia Speciosa.JPG, Flowering small tree ( Narsingdi, Bangladesh) Image:Banaba Flower (Lagerstroemia speciosa).jpg, Inflorescence close up ( Camarines Sur, Philippines) File:Lagerstroemia speciosa shrubs.jpg, Young plants in polybags (

Thrissur Thrissur (), formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the third largest urban agglomeration in Kerala after Kochi and Kozhikode, and t ...

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

, India)

References

* Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening'' 3: 10.

External links

Flora of Pakistan: ''Lagerstroemia speciosa''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1137593

speciosa Speciosa (foaled 28 April 2003) is an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse. In a racing career which lasted from June 2005 and October 2007 she ran seventeen times and won four races. As a two-year-old, she won two of her six race ...

Flora of tropical Asia Medicinal plants of Asia Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Taxa named by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Symbols of Maharashtra