Watermelon slice

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Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. Kordofan melons from Sudan are the closest relatives and may be progenitors of modern, cultivated watermelons. Considerable breeding effort has developed disease-resistant varieties. Many cultivars are available that produce mature fruit within 100 days of planting. In 2017, China produced about two-thirds of the world’s total of watermelons. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.

The watermelon is an annual that has a prostrate or climbing habit. These usually have three lobes that are lobed or doubly lobed. Young growth is densely woolly with yellowish-brown hairs which disappear as the plant ages. Like all but one species in the genus Citrullus, watermelon has branching tendrils. Western Australia where they are called “pig melon”. The sweet watermelon was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and given the name Cucurbita citrullus.

Prior to 2015, the wild species closest to Citrullus lanatus was assumed to be the tendril-less melon Citrullus ecirrhosus Cogn. South African arid regions based on an erroneously identified 18th century specimen. Watermelons were originally cultivated for their high water content and were stored to be eaten during dry seasons, not only as a food source, but as a method of storing water. Uan Muhuggiag, a prehistoric archaeological site located in southwestern Libya. This archaeobotanical discovery may support the possibility that the plant was more widely distributed in the past. In the 7th century, watermelons were being cultivated in India, and by the 10th century had reached China. Early watermelons were not sweet, but bitter, with yellowish-white flesh and difficult to open.

Through breeding, watermelons later tasted better and were easier to open. European colonists and enslaved people from Africa introduced the watermelon to the New World. Spanish settlers were growing it in Florida in 1576. Seedless watermelons were initially developed in 1939 by Japanese scientists who were able to create seedless triploid hybrids which remained rare initially because they did not have sufficient disease resistance. On a garden scale, seeds are usually sown in pots under cover and transplanted into well-drained sandy loam with a pH between 5.