Siraitia grosvenorii

Siraitia grosvenorii, commonly known as luohan fruit (Chinese: 羅漢果; pinyin: luóhàn guǒ "arhat fruit", also directly: luo han guo/kuo), monk fruit or swingle fruit is a herbaceous perennial vine of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, native to southern China.

The plant is cultivated for its fruit extract containing mogrosides. Mogroside extract has been used as a low-calorie sugar substitute for drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine. One mogroside classified as mogroside V produces a sweet-tasting sensation 250 times stronger than sucrose.

Etymology and regional names

In Buddhism, an arhat is a monk who has attained enlightenment, also described as one who has attained the "fruition of arhatship" (Sanskrit: arhattaphala); this thus was partially calqued as 羅漢果 luóhàn guǒ (plus rendered into Vietnamese as la hán quả), the Chinese name was adopted as the Western commercial designation for this fruit.

The genus name Siraitia was named by American botanist Elmer Drew Merrill for his colleague Sirait Sawek, a Thai botanist who collected specimens in Southeast Asia.

The species name grosvenorii 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.

History and distribution

Monk fruit was first mentioned in the 13th century off Chinese monastic records in Guangxi in the region of Guilin. The difficulty of cultivation meant the fruit did not become part of the Chinese herbal tradition which depended on more readily available products.

The first English botanical description of monk fruit was published in 1941 by Walter T. Swingle.