Stevia is a semi-humid subtropical plant that can be grown easily like any other vegetable crop even in the kitchen garden. Leaves are sessile, 3-4 cm long, elongate-lanceolate or spatulate shape with blunt-tipped lamina, serrate margin from the middle to the tip and entire below. The upper surface of the leaf is slightly glandular pubescent. The stem is weak-pubescent at bottom and woody. The rhizome has slightly branching roots. Flowers are composite surrounded by an involucre of epicalyx. The capitula are in loose, irregular, sympodial cymes. The flowers are light purple, pentamerous. The fruit is a five-ribbed spindle-shaped achene.1 It has been used to sweeten tea for centuries dating back to the Guarani Indians of South America. Glycosides responsible for the plants sweeteners were discovered in 1931. Its extracts are used today as a food additive by the Japanese and Brazilians and as a non-caloric sweetener.

Stevia has been successfully cultivated in recent years in many areas of Indian states: Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerela and Orissa. The increasing demands for natural sweeteners have driven the farmers in India toward large-scale Stevia cultivation. Diterpene glycosides are the group of natural sweeteners that have been extracted from Stevia. The leaves of wild Stevia plants contain 0.3% dulcoside, 0.6% rebaudioside C, 3.8% rebaudioside A and 9.1% stevioside.