Background and Purpose: Hypericum perforatum belonging to the family Hypericaceae is a reputed medicinal plant including a wide ranges of important phytochemical components. Chlorogenic acid, rutin, hyperoside, quercitrin, quercetin, pseudohypericin, hypericin and hyperforin are of the major components. Crude extract and individual compounds of H. perforatum have been reported to exert antidepressant, antibiotic, and antitumoral activities. It is worthy to note that the quantity and efficacies of the crude extracts or individual compound are not constant, which are strongly influenced by different climatic conditions, harvesting times, harvested plant organs and post-harvest practices. Hence, numerous studies on H. perforatum collected from different parts of the World are carried out for their desired quality and biological efficacy. Methods: Wild collected plant materials were dried and preserved with a voucher specimen number and were extracted using maceration at room temperature for 24 h in dark. Subsequently, extracts were screened for their phenolic and flavonoid contents, plausible antioxidant activities using two methods namely DPPH radical scavenging and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays and DNA protective activities. Results: The highlights of the study were are listed as 1) the highest total phenolic content in ethanol extracts of leaf, ii) the highest total flavonoid content in flower, iii) DPPH scavenging activity in leaf (80.51 %), flower (63.42 %) and stem (48.20 %), iv) highest ferric reduction capacity in ethanol extracts of stem were determined. Also, potent DNA protection activity was observed even at the lowest concentration value (25µg/ml) of the extracts. Conclusion: The phenolic content and strong antioxidant activities of ethanol extracts of different parts of the plant are reported. All the extracts exhibited strong DNA protective activities in response to the UV radiation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide.

Arum dioscoridis, locally called 'Gavur pancari', is a wild plant the leaves of which have been used as vegetable and for preparing special soup which has a sour taste. This study was set up to determine in vitro antioxidant activities and total phenolic and flavonoid contents of different extracts of A. dioscoridis. Free radical scavenging activity was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing activity with different concentrations of ethanol, methanol, acetone and water extracts of the plant leaves. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were widely variable depending on solvents. Ethanol and methanol extractions of the plant material showed better performances with respect to both phenolic and flavonoid contents, respectively. The highest phenolic and flavonoid contents of ethanol and methanol extracts were 100.890 mg/g GAE and 72.643 mg/g QE, respectively. The lower DPPH scavenging and ferric reducing activities were determined in comparison with previous reports and standard synthetic chemicals.