[Umbrian]

When visiting the Perugia flower show earlier this year I was drawn to an unusual plant,( see photo, hopefully!)
The nurseryman was most enthusiastic but spoke so fast (in Italian) that I did not get the name of the plant . He did however pull a leaf off which he urged me to eat and it was very sweet. He then fetched a second, different plant and repeated the exercise. (This was even sweeter) The stall got busy and I was with friends who were urging me along and so I bought the first plant and he gave me the second!
The plant in the photo has grown fast and has a beautiful trailing habit with small upright "cone-like" flowers.
The other, that I will try to re-photograph,( my first effort at cropping my image resulted in disaster and I was left with virtually nothing) has not produced flowers but has soft mid green leaves and has reached a height of over 1 metre. Both are in pots as I am sure that they will not survive our low winter temperatures.
Scientific information would also be interesting regarding the possible harnessing of the "sugar/sweet porperties of these plants.

[oron peri]

Umbrian,

The sweet  plant you describe sounds like Stevia rebaudiana which is already used as a natural sweetener while the one on the photo is Phyla scaberrima (syn. Lippia dulcis ).

[Umbrian]

Thanks Oron what service

[David Bracey]

This article was published in the MGS Science Newsletter 2010

Stevia
“The latest of natures` wonder products is Stevia rebaudianais, known as sweetleaf, sugarleaf or simply stevia. A member of the sunflower family and native to South America, it is grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and/or sugar substitute stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar. It is said to be 300 times sweeter than sucrose-sugar.  Being “natural” it has gained interest from the organic lobby and especially the food industry as a natural sucrose/sugar replacement.  At the moment it is only available in limited commercial quantities however it will likely become more popular in the future as supplies increase and restrictions on its use in food are resolved.
There are MGS members who are successfully propagating and growing their own stevia.  The plant may be bought at nurseries, grown-on, harvested, the leaves dried and then simply used as a sweetener.
(NB please note that the jury is still out as far as the toxicity of Stevia is concerned. It is commercially available and used in many countries including Japan, Brazil China etc however the FDA and EFDA (European and US Food and Drug Administrations) have not given the greenlight to the use of Stevia in all its forms and applications).

David

[Umbrian]

Thanks David, very interesting, might dry some leaves and try them out. I did put some fresh ones into a homemade lemon drink I make but was not very impressed with the result, it seemed a bit bitter to me.