Stevia Rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni in An. Cie. Parag., ser. I, 5: 



1. 1905. 



This is the "sweet herb of Paraguay", presently widely used in 

 Japan as a sweetener. According to early reports by Gosling 

 (1901) and Bertoni (1905, 1918) the leaves of this plant have been 

 used by the natives of Paraguay since time immemorial to 

 sweeten foods. One later report (Mazzei-Planas and Kuc, 1968) 

 indicated that, additionally, the milled aerial parts are taken by 

 women in Paraguay as a contraceptive. 



The local use of the leaves of this plant as a food additive, for 

 example to sweeten a mate beverage, was confirmed during a 

 recent field work in Paraguay (Soejarto et al., 1983), but no 

 confirmation could be obtained concerning the use of the plant 



as a contraceptive. 



More recent reports (Angelucci, 1981; Soejarto et al., 1983) 

 indicated that S, Rebaudiana is also used in Paraguay as a tea 

 for the treatment of diabetes. Such use, however, appears to be 

 of modern origin, due to reports on the hypoglycemic activity of 

 extracts of the leaves of this plant (Soejarto et a!., 1983). Ange- 

 lucci (1981) further added that the plant is used to regulate 

 arterial pressure in hypertensive persons. 



Sakaguchi and Kan (1982) mentioned that historical evidence 

 on the use of 5". Rebaudiana as a sweetener in South America is 

 found in the documents of the Spanish conquerors preserved in 

 the National Archives in Asuncion, Paraguay. 



In Paraguay, S. Rebaudiana is known in the Guarani lan- 

 guage as Caa-ehe (Gosling, 1901), Sind Caa-ehe and Kaa-Hee 

 (Bertoni, 1905, 1918), Caa-ehe and Azuca-caa (Cabrera, 1939), 

 Caa-he-he or Caa-enhem (Mors and Rizzini, 1966), and Ka-a 

 He-e (Soejarto et al., 1983) or by other renditions, all of which 

 mean sweet herb. Pio-Correa (1926) applied the name Caa-ehe 

 erroneously to Stevia collina Gardner, believing that this is the 

 sweet-tasting species. At the same time, S. Rebaudiana was con- 

 fused with being a Brazilian plant growing in the areas of Minas 

 Geraes, Sao Paulo and Matto Grosso, although in fact, the 

 native territory of this species is the Cordillera of Amambay, 

 Paraguay (Gosling, 1901; Bertoni, 1905, 1918; Sumida, 1973; 

 Soejarto etal., 1983). 



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