Siraitia grosvenorii, also known as monkfruit or luohan guo, is a herbaceous perennial vine of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. It is native to southern China. The plant is cultivated for its fruit extract, called mogrosides, which creates a sweetness sensation 250 times stronger than sucrose. Mogroside extract has been used as a low-calorie sweetener for drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine. 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. Etymology and regional names Monkfruit was first mentioned in the records of 13th-century Chinese monks 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. Luóhàn (羅漢) is a shortened form of āluóhàn (), which is an old transliteration of the Indian Sanskrit word arhat (prakrit: arahant). In early Buddhist traditions, a monk who becomes enlightened is called an arhat who attains the "fruition of arhatship" (Sanskrit: arhattaphala). This was rendered in Chinese as luóhàn guǒ (羅漢果 literally "arhat fruit") which later became the Chinese and western commercial designation for this type of sweet fruit. It may also be called la han qua (from Vietnamese la hán quả, which also means Arhat fruit), or longevity fruit (also used for other fruits). History and distribution The first report in England on the herb was found in an unpublished manuscript written in 1938 by G. Weidman Groff and Hoh Hin Cheung. The report stated the fruits were often used as the main ingredients of "cooling drinks" as remedies for hot weather, fever, or other dysfunctions traditionally associated with warmth or heat (e.g., inflammation). The fruit was taken to the United States in the early 20th century. Groff mentioned that, during a visit to the American ministry of agriculture in 1917, the botanist Frederick Coville showed him a luo han guo fruit bought in a Chinese shop in Washington, DC. Seeds of the fruit, which had been bought in a Chinese shop in San Francisco, were entered into the botanic description of the species in 1941. The first research into the sweet component of luo han guo is attributed to C. H. Lee, who wrote an English report on it in 1975, and also to