Outline
Dicots Gang, Asteraceae perennial herb. The introduction of planting the early eighties, is a new source of sugar plants. Glucoside 6-12% with chrysanthemum leaves, fine white powder, is a low-calorie, high sweetness of natural sweeteners, food and pharmaceutical industry is one of the materials.
Stevia plant height of 90-150 cm, base woody, stem diameter 0.8-1.2 cm, 30-50 primary branches, secondary branches 90-160 months; leaves opposite, oval-shaped, paper, leaves surface roughness, annual plant with leaves up to 1 200 400-700 pieces; inflorescence arranged in sparse multi-room-like, tubular involucre, flowers police flat, corolla white; fruit of long spindle-shaped achenes, the top of the umbrella-shaped crown of Health hair; grain weight 0.3-0.4 grams. Currently, the average annual temperature in Liangshan 17-22 ℃, annual precipitation 900-1200 mm, frost-free period 278-356 days, annual sunshine hours of Xichang 1870-2700, Johnson, will be reasonable, will be east, Ningxia, Jinyang, etc. counties and cities to try to grow a successful introduction; growth period of 140 days, growing season, yield of fresh leaves 100O-1500 kg, 180-230 kg of dried leaves per acre cost a thousand dollars.
As part of processing did not keep pace, poor circulation, slow the development of stevia.

Source
In 1969, the Japanese live in Brazil, Professor Tian Zheye found a sweet mountain Compositae, people call it stevia. Use it to extract the glycosides, the sweetness of sugar is about 300 times. Stevia is the ideal sweetener with calories and low, its calories only one three-hundredth of sugar, fat people will not eat, for obesity and diabetes is particularly appropriate. Long-term use of stevia cooking water to drink, there are lower blood pressure, promote metabolism and strong body effect. Therefore, stevia discovered, many countries have introduced the cultivation and exploitation.