| Siraitia grosvenorii | |
|---|---|
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| Siraitia grosvenorii (luohan guo) fruits | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Cucurbitales |
| Family: | Cucurbitaceae |
| Genus: | Siraitia |
| Species: | S. grosvenorii
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| Binomial name | |
| Siraitia grosvenorii | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Momordica grosvenorii Swingle | |
| Siraitia grosvenorii (monkfruit) | |||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 羅漢果 | ||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 罗汉果 | ||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "arhat fruit" | ||||||||||||||||
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Siraitia grosvenorii, also known as monk fruit, monkfruit, luohan guo, or Swingle fruit, is a herbaceous perennial vine of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. It is native to southern China. The plant is cultivated for its fruit extract containing mogrosides. Mogroside extract has been used as a low-calorie sweetener for drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine. One mogroside, mogroside V, creates a sweetness sensation 250 times stronger than sucrose.[2]
The scientific species name honors Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, who, as president of the National Geographic Society, helped to fund an expedition in the 1930s to find the living plant in China where it was already being cultivated.[3]
- ^ "The Plant List".
- ^ Itkin, M.; Davidovich-Rikanati, R.; Cohen, S.; et al. (2016). "The biosynthetic pathway of the nonsugar, high-intensity sweetener mogroside V from Siraitia grosvenorii". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (47): E7619–E7628. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113E7619I. doi:10.1073/pnas.1604828113. PMC 5127336. PMID 27821754.
- ^ Walter T. Swingle (1941). "Momordica grosvenori sp. nov.: The source of the Chinese Lo Han Kuo". Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. 22 (2): 197–203. doi:10.5962/p.183529. S2CID 90949182.