Flemingia macrophylla
StarFlemingia macrophylla
Synonyms: Rhynchosia sericea, Crotalaria macrophylla, Flemingia latifolia var. hainanensis, Rhynchosia crotalarioides, Flemingia macrophylla var. congesta, Maughania macrophylla f. poecilantha, Flemingia latifolia var. siamensis, Maughania macrophylla f. viridula, Maughania tomentosa, Flemingia macrophylla var. viridis, Maughania brevipes, Maughania sericans, Flemingia sericans, Maughania macrophylla, Flemingia trinervia, Hedysarum trinervium, Flemingia congesta, Flemingia congesta var. viridis, Flemingia congesta var. tomentosa, Flemingia brevipes, Crotalaria cavaleriei
Safety at a glance
No rule in our tables for this herb: pregnancy, breastfeeding, incompatible pairs (十八反 / 十九畏), herb–drug, dose ceiling. This is not a safety clearance.
Not graded — No toxicity grade is recorded. Most herbs in the catalogue carry none.
Traditionally used for
- Colds & fever
- Pain & joints
- Heart & circulation
Western Herbalism Properties
Traditional Uses
The root of Flemingia macrophylla is a long-used herbal medicine in southern China, known in Chinese as da ye qian jin ba and employed in both traditional Chinese medicine and in the folk medicine of the Zhuang and Yao peoples. It is used to dispel wind and dampness, strengthen the bones and muscles, and promote blood circulation, and is applied to fractures, traumatic injury, arthritis, rheumatism and influenza. Pharmacological studies of root extracts have confirmed analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity (Discover Pharmaceutical Sciences review, 2025; Chinese Medicine, 2023).
Botanical Description
Flemingia macrophylla is a robust, erect, woody shrub of the legume family (Fabaceae) widely distributed across southern China, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, where it grows in open forest, grassland and disturbed ground and is also planted for forage and as a soil-improving cover crop. It reaches up to about 2 to 3 metres tall, with angular, silky-hairy young stems. The leaves are distinctive trifoliate leaves with large, papery leaflets, the central one broadly lanceolate and prominently three-veined from the base, the surfaces dotted with tiny glands. The pea-like flowers are pink to purplish-red and crowded into dense, bristly, axillary or terminal racemes subtended by conspicuous folded bracts. The fruit is a small, inflated, hairy pod containing one or two shiny dark seeds. The thick, woody roots are the part valued in herbal medicine.
Active Constituents
Genistein
Isoflavone aglyconeConcentration: Described with its glucoside genistin as the primary medicinal component of the species; content in cultivated seedlings rises with magnesium supply
The dominant isoflavone of the root and the reason this herb behaves like a phytoestrogen. Genistein binds oestrogen receptor beta far more strongly than alpha, which is the pharmacological basis for the selective oestrogen receptor modulator profile of the crude root extract. Magnesium feeding at 0.27 to 0.36 g/L raised genistein and suppressed its glycosylation to genistin, so growing conditions shift the aglycone-to-glycoside ratio.
Genistin
Isoflavone 7-O-glucosideConcentration: The glycosidic partner of genistein; the two together are treated as the marker pair for this drug
A pro-drug form: the sugar is cleaved by gut bacterial beta-glucosidases to release genistein, so the systemic oestrogenic exposure from a decoction depends on the patient's gut flora as much as on the batch assay.
Daidzein and daidzin
Isoflavone and its 7-O-glucosideConcentration: Both quantified by HPLC in the water extract of the root, alongside genistin and genistein
Contribute to the radical scavenging, ferrous ion chelating and phospholipid-protecting activity of the root water extract, and to its tyrosinase inhibition between 50 and 100 micrograms per mL. Daidzein is also the precursor from which some people's gut flora make equol, a considerably stronger oestrogen than the parent.
Lespedezaflavanone A
Prenylated flavanoneConcentration: Isolated from a 75 per cent ethanolic root extract and proposed by its discoverers as the quality-control marker for that extract
The component that carries the bone effect: it inhibited osteoclast differentiation in cultured rat bone marrow cells, and the extract containing it cut urinary deoxypyridinoline in ovariectomised rats without suppressing serum alkaline phosphatase, meaning bone resorption was inhibited rather than formation stimulated.
Fleminigin
Prenylated isoflavonoidConcentration: A previously undescribed compound isolated with twenty-three known compounds from the methanolic root extract
Found by oestrogenic-activity-guided fractionation of the root. The isoflavonoids isolated with it behaved as partial oestrogen agonists and as antagonists depending on the assay, which is what a selective oestrogen receptor modulator profile looks like and why the direction of effect in a given patient is not predictable from the dose.
Osajin
Prenylated isoflavoneConcentration: Isolated from the aerial parts, not the root that is dispensed
Blocked amyloid-beta-induced neuronal damage with an EC50 of 5.01 micromolar, second only to 5,7,4'-trihydroxy-6,3'-diprenylisoflavone at 4.47 micromolar and ahead of 5,7,4'-trihydroxy-6,8-diprenylisoflavone at 11.25, aureole at 12.09 and flemingichromone at 31.43 micromolar. This is aerial-part chemistry and should not be read onto root preparations.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors and oestrogen replacement therapy
The methanolic root extract showed oestrogenic activity comparable to soybean extract in a transgenic plant assay, and activity-guided fractionation identified isoflavonoids acting as partial oestrogen agonists and as antagonists, a genuine selective oestrogen receptor modulator profile. Genistein, the herb's principal constituent, is a well-characterised oestrogen receptor beta agonist. A partial agonist can either add to or oppose tamoxifen depending on receptor context and on circulating oestrogen, so the direction of the interaction cannot be predicted for an individual patient.
Clinical note: Avoid in patients on tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors or fulvestrant, and in oestrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer generally, unless the oncology team has agreed to it. This is the herb's single most important caution and it applies to the root, which is the part dispensed.
Flemingia prostrata (Qian Jin Ba, also traded as Flemingia philippinensis and Yi Tiao Gen)
The two species are explicitly described as frequently confused in the Chinese medicinal materials market, and were only reliably separated in 2025 by chloroplast genome comparison, which found 286 SNPs and 104 indels and identified psaJ-rps18 as a usable barcode region. They diverged only about 0.26 million years ago, share the root as the medicinal part, share the drug name Qian Jin Ba and are used for the same wind-damp and lumbar indications. Their isoflavonoid profiles are not identical, so a substitution silently changes what the patient receives.
Clinical note: Ask the supplier which binomial the material is, and prefer material with SSR or barcode authentication. Note in the record which species was actually dispensed, since Da Ye Qian Jin Ba and Qian Jin Ba are used interchangeably by many suppliers.
Levothyroxine
Extrapolated from soy isoflavone data rather than measured for this herb. Genistein and daidzein inhibit thyroid peroxidase in vitro, and soy isoflavone preparations reduce levothyroxine absorption when taken together. Since genistein and genistin are named as this herb's primary medicinal components, the same concern applies in principle, but no study has measured thyroid function or levothyroxine kinetics with this species.
Clinical note: Separate doses by at least four hours and recheck thyroid-stimulating hormone about six weeks after starting or stopping the herb in a treated hypothyroid patient.
Dosage Calculator
⚖ Dosage Calculator
A weight-based mathematical estimate for Flemingia macrophylla. Not a prescription.
Evidence Tier
Moderate evidence · 5 studiesRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
5
1 verified · 4 unverified
Show 5 studies
- Phyto-SERM Constitutes from Flemingia macrophylla
- Flemingia macrophylla Extract Ameliorates Experimental Osteoporosis in Ovariectomized Rats
- Neuroprotective Flavonoids from Flemingia macrophylla
- Prenylated chromones and flavonoids isolated from the roots of Flemingia macrophylla and their anti-lung cancer activity
- Antioxidant and Antityrosinase Activity of Flemingia macrophylla and Glycine tomentella Roots
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
Phyto-SERM Constitutes from Flemingia macrophylla
The study that establishes the herb as endocrine-active. The methanolic root extract was oestrogenic at a level comparable to soybean extract, and oestrogenic-activity-guided fractionation yielded the new compound fleminigin plus twenty-three known compounds, with full spectral data for flemichin E reported for the first time. The isolated isoflavonoids acted as partial oestrogen agonists and antagonists, supporting a selective oestrogen receptor modulator profile. Cell and reporter assays only; no animal or human endocrine data.
Flemingia macrophylla Extract Ameliorates Experimental Osteoporosis in Ovariectomized Rats
A 75 per cent ethanolic root extract inhibited osteoclast differentiation of cultured rat bone marrow cells, and thirteen weeks of oral dosing suppressed bone loss in ovariectomised rats. Urinary deoxypyridinoline fell while serum alkaline phosphatase was unchanged, so the mechanism is inhibition of bone resorption rather than stimulation of formation. Lespedezaflavanone A was isolated as the active component and proposed as a quality marker. The longest in vivo exposure reported for this herb, but still rodent only.
Neuroprotective Flavonoids from Flemingia macrophylla
Three new flavonoids, fleminginin, flemingichromone and flemingichalcone, and twenty known compounds were isolated from the aerial parts by amyloid-beta-neurotoxicity-guided fractionation. 5,7,4'-Trihydroxy-6,3'-diprenylisoflavone was the most potent protectant at EC50 4.47 micromolar, then osajin at 5.01, the 6,8-diprenyl isomer at 11.25, aureole at 12.09 and flemingichromone at 31.43 micromolar. Worth reading with care: the aerial-part compound named fleminginin here is not the root compound named fleminigin in the 2013 study.
Prenylated chromones and flavonoids isolated from the roots of Flemingia macrophylla and their anti-lung cancer activity
Two pairs of undescribed enantiomers and eight known compounds were isolated from the roots. Three were more cytotoxic to A549 and H1975 lung cancer cells than the marketed prenylflavonoid drug icaritin, with IC50 values from 4.50 to 19.83 micromolar. Docking, cellular thermal shift assay and western blotting supported direct binding to p53, with the most active enantiomer raising p53, lowering Bcl-2 and activating caspases. Cell-line work with no animal confirmation.
Antioxidant and Antityrosinase Activity of Flemingia macrophylla and Glycine tomentella Roots
The water extract of the root, which is closest to how the herb is actually taken, scavenged radicals, chelated ferrous ion and protected phospholipids from oxidation, and inhibited tyrosinase between 50 and 100 micrograms per mL more strongly than a Glycine tomentella root extract. HPLC identified daidzin, daidzein, genistin and genistein as the phenolics present. Chemical assays rather than cellular or clinical endpoints.
Historical Texts
Zhi Wu Ming Shi Tu Kao (Illustrated Investigation of Names and Natures of Plants), Wu Qijun
Qing dynasty, 1848Ling Nan Cai Yao Lu (Records of Herb Collecting in Lingnan), Xiao Budan
Republican era, 1932References
- Wei F, Lin Y, Tang D, Liang Y, Qin S. Comparative analysis of complete chloroplast genomes of Flemingia prostrata and Flemingia macrophylla, two commonly used medicinal plants in southern China . Frontiers in Plant Science (2025) [DOI]
- Tan K, Wu G, Yu Q, Liang Y, Wei F, Huang B, Cai J, Xie G, Chen L, Wei K. Multi-Omics Analyses Reveal Key Factors Involved in Genistein Accumulation in Flemingia macrophylla Exposed to Different Magnesium Concentrations . Physiologia Plantarum (2025) [DOI]
- Lin YL, Tsay HJ, Liao YF, Wu MF, Wang CN, Shiao YJ. The Components of Flemingia macrophylla Attenuate Amyloid beta-Protein Accumulation by Regulating Amyloid beta-Protein Metabolic Pathway . Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2012) [DOI]
- Chiang HM, Chiu HH, Liao ST, Chen YT, Chang HC, Wen KC. Isoflavonoid-Rich Flemingia macrophylla Extract Attenuates UVB-Induced Skin Damage by Scavenging Reactive Oxygen Species and Inhibiting MAP Kinase and MMP Expression . Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2013) [DOI]
- Wang LX, Zheng HR, Ren FC, Chen TG, Li XM, Jiang XJ, Wang F. Polysubstituted Isoflavonoids from Spatholobus suberectus, Flemingia macrophylla, and Cudrania cochinchinensis . Natural Products and Bioprospecting (2017) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
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