Plants & Crops Codexery

Watermelon

A sweet, juicy vine fruit domesticated in Sudan and cultivated worldwide.

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Cultivated varieties can exceed 60 cm in diameter, while wild plants produce fruits up to 20 cm.[1] A pepo, which is a modified berry, describes the watermelon's large fruit structure, featuring a thick outer rind and a soft, fleshy interior.[1]

Scientific classification

  1. CladeTracheophytes
  2. CladeAngiosperms
  3. CladeEudicots
  4. CladeRosids
  5. OrderCucurbitales
  6. FamilyCucurbitaceae
  7. GenusCitrullus
  8. SpeciesCitrullus lanatus

Named by (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Watermelon (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where the watermelon has been recorded

Where the watermelon has been recorded90 mapped locations from 15,576 GBIF occurrence records; marked places: Bab edh-DhraBab edh-Dhra

Each dot is a place where the species has been observed and reported (15,576 records, half-degree grid) — not a modelled range. 855 inland records left out (institution coordinates).

Map: drawn by Codexery. Data: GBIF occurrence search (records CC0 / CC BY) · Natural Earth basemap (public domain) · place coordinates: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick Facts

Genus
Citrullus
Species
lanatus

Facts from the source article.

Biology and range

Watermelons grow in tropical to temperate climates and need temperatures above 25 °C to thrive.[2] A female watermelon flower needs around 500 to 1000 pollen grains for effective fertilization.[3] Seedless watermelons produce sterile pollen, requiring pollen from viable male flowers of standard or pollinizer types.[3] For seedless varieties, 16 to 24 honeybee visits are needed to set fruit.[3]

The outer rind displays colors from mid- to dark green, often with mottling or stripes, while the inner flesh may be red, pink, orange, yellow, green, or white.[4] Aphids, fruit flies, and root-knot nematodes are significant pests that affect watermelon crops.[5] High humidity makes watermelon plants susceptible to powdery mildew and mosaic virus infections.[5]

What the specialist sources record

Molecular data show the sweet watermelon and the bitter wooly melon are not closely related.[6] The closest wild relative to the domesticated watermelon is now thought to be Citrullus mucosospermus from West Africa.[7] Sudan is where the modern watermelon was first domesticated, and the Kordofan melons found there are its closest relatives and likely ancestors.[8][9] Carl Linnaeus provided the first scientific description of the species in 1753, naming it Cucurbita citrullus.[10]

Heinrich Adolf Schrader, a German botanist, moved the species to the genus Citrullus in 1836, giving it the name Citrullus vulgaris.[10] Carl Peter Thunberg formally described the bitter wooly melon in 1794, assigning it the name Momordica lanata.[7]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "A Systematic Treatment of Fruit Types", Worldbotanical.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Watermelon | Land & Water | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | Land & Water | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations", fao.org (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. "Pollination in Watermelons Weekly Crop Update", 2023-05-12. facts only, no text reused. sites.udel.edu
  4. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Maynard, "The Cambridge World History of Food", Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 267–270; "Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai", South Africa National Biodiversity Institute (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Gardening", Dorling Kindersley, 1992, p. 333 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bailey LH. 1930. Three discussions in Cucurbitaceae. Gentes Herbarum 2: 175–186.; "Watermelon origin solved with molecular phylogenetics including Linnaean material: Another example of museomics", New Phytologist, 2014, p. 526–32; "Proposal to conserve the name Momordica lanata (Citrullus lanatus) (watermelon, Cucurbitaceae), with a conserved type, against Citrullus battich", Taxon, 2014, p. 941–942 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Watermelon origin solved with molecular phylogenetics including Linnaean material: Another example of museomics", New Phytologist, 2014, p. 526–32; Renner, "A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021-05-24; "Momordica lanata", Australian Plant Name Index (APNI); "Citrullus lanatus", Australian Plant Name Index (APNI) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fox, "Researchers Uncover the Watermelon's Origins", Smithsonian Magazine; Renner, "A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021-05-24; Renner, "A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021-05-24; Wasylikowa, "An archaeobotanical contribution to the history of watermelon, Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai (syn. C. vulgar en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Strauss, "The 5,000-Year Secret History of the Watermelon", National Geographic News, 2015-08-21; Renner, "A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021-05-24; Fox, "Researchers Uncover the Watermelon's Origins", Smithsonian Magazine; Renner, "A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021-05-24; Amar, "Arabian Drugs in Medieval Med en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Watermelon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Citrullus vulgaris Schrad.", The International Plant Names Index; Article 23.4 "The specific epithet, with or without the addition of a transcribed symbol, may not exactly repeat the generic name (a designation formed by such (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Watermelon (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

Test yourself on TriviaCafe: To which biological family does the watermelon belong: Convolvulaceae, Poaceae, Cucurbitaceae or Liliaceae? · More science trivia

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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