by the natives of Paraguay, where the plant is indigenous 

 (Gosling, 1901; Bertoni, 1905, 1918; Sakaguchi and Kan, 1982). 

 Research on the sweetening properties of this species was 

 initiated at the onset of this century, and much is now known 

 about this plant and its constituents. Felippe (1977), Tanaka 

 (1980) and Sakaguchi and Kan (1982) have reviewed the prog- 

 ress and status of research in this area. 



Within the past ten years, extracts of S. Rebaudiana and ste- 

 vioside, one of the sweet principles isolated from the plant, have 

 been introduced for use in Japan as sweetening agents and as 

 dietary sucrose substitutes (Sumida, 1973; Abe and Sonobe, 

 1977; Fujita and Edahiro, 1979; Kazuyama, 1979). The sweeten- 

 ing power of stevioside has been evaluated at 100-300 times that 

 of sucrose, depending on the concentration of sucrose used for 

 comparison (Kamiya et al., 1979). 



As a continuation of our current interest in the search of 

 vegetal sweeteners as possible dietary sucrose substitutes (King- 

 horn et al., 1982), we have surveyed the literature of Stevia, in 

 the hope of finding new leads for the discovery of other sweet- 

 tasting species within the genus. Additionally, field work in 

 Mexico and South America was conducted to inquire of the uses 

 of members of Stevia. The results of this field work have been 

 published elsewhere (Soejarto et al., 1983). 



As a result of our literature survey, a significant amount of 

 ethnobotanical information concerning members of Stevia was 

 uncovered. Contrary to expectation, very little information was 

 found relating to the possible existence of other sweet-tasting 

 Stevia species, with the great majority concerned with primarily 

 medicinal uses. These data are presented in this paper to stimu- 

 late further research and hopefully will lead to the discovery of 



additional biologically active compounds from this plant group. 

 Since there is no current unified classification for Stevia 



throughout its range, the following ethnobotanical data are 

 presented in alphabetical order, according to species. Should the 

 status of a Latin binomial be considered questionable, com- 

 ments on nomenclature and taxonomy are given. 



Certain data have been obtained directly from herbarium 

 specimens of Stevia deposited at the John G. Searle Herbarium, 



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