hernandulcin

thumb|The Phyla dulcis plant, which naturally produces hernandulcin. Hernandulcin is an intensely sweet chemical compound gained from the chiefly Mexican and South American plant Lippia dulcis.

==History and origin== In the 1570s, Spanish physician Francisco Hernández described a remarkably sweet plant known to the Aztecs as Tzonpelic xihuitl, meaning "sweet herb". This reference, accompanied by an accurate description and illustration of the plant, led to a group of pharmacognocists in 1985 to a previously unrecognised, intensely sweet chemical that can provide sweetness without tooth decay. Cesar M. Compadre, and A. Douglas Kinghorn, from the University of Illinois at Chicago isolated and identified the sweet compound from the leaves and flowers of the Lippia dulcis plant, in Mexico. The researchers noted the chemical structure of the colourless oil, and named it hernandulcin after Francisco Hernandez.