- An African vine (Citrullus lanatus) cultivated for its large edible fruit.
- The fruit of this plant, having a hard green rind and sweet watery pink or reddish flesh.
Dictionary:
wa·ter·mel·on (wô'tər-mĕl'ən, wŏt'ər-) ![]() |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: watermelon |
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| Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Watermelon |
The edible fruit of Citrullus lanatus, of the family Cucurbitaceae. The plant is an annual prostrate vine with multiple stems.
The numerous cultivars of watermelon are highly diverse in fruit size (5–85 lb; 2.3–38.3 kg), shape (round, oval, oblong-cylindrical), rind color (very light to very dark green and often striped or mottled), flesh color (red, pink, orange, yellow, white), and seed size and color. The flesh contains 6–12% sugar, depending upon variety and condition of growth, with 8% sugar being acceptable on most markets.
Watermelon juice of the sweet cultivars can be reduced to edible sugar and syrup. Watermelon seeds are relished as food in some Near East countries and in China. Fresh watermelon flesh has a unique melting quality that has proved impossible to preserve in palatable form through any processing technique. The flesh consists of water (91%), fiber, and sugar, and little else of obvious nutritional value, but may have some as yet unproved health-promoting value. It is said to have diuretic properties, and both frozen concentrate and canned juice have been available for the treatment of nephritis. The seeds also are said to contain substances effective in the control of hypertension.
| Food and Nutrition: watermelon |
Fruit of Citrullus vulgaris, see melon.
| Food Lover's Companion: watermelon |
Native to Africa, the watermelon is one of two broad categories of melon, the other being muskmelon. It's considered the less sophisticated of the two because it lacks flavor complexity and has a watery texture. But there are those who wouldn't trade a slice of watermelon on a hot summer day for anything. There are an untold number of watermelon varieties but America's most popular is the large, elongated-oval shape with a variegated or striped, two-tone green or gray-green rind. It averages 15 to 35 pounds but may be much smaller or larger, depending on the variety. There are even relatively tiny varieties about the size of a medium cantaloupe. An abundance of shiny, black seeds dot the sweet, red, refreshingly moist flesh. Other watermelon varieties have flesh that ranges in color from white to yellow to pink. The seeds may be speckled or solid and variously colored-black, brown, green, red or white. Seedless watermelons actually do, more often than not, have a few scattered seeds. What seeds there are, however, are small, soft and edible. All parts of the watermelon can be used. Asians love the roasted seeds, and the pickled rind is a favorite in many parts of the world. Watermelons are available May to September, though they're at their peak from mid-June to late August. They're sold whole as well as in halves, quarters or by the slice. Look for symmetrical melons without any flat sides. Depending on the variety, the shape can be round or an oblong oval. Slap the side of the watermelon-if it resounds with a hollow thump, it's a good indicator that the melon is ripe. The rind should be dull (not shiny) and just barely yield to pressure. Never take home a melon with soft spots, gashes or other blemishes on the rind. Cut watermelons should display a brightly colored flesh. An abundance of small, white seeds means the melon is immature. Avoid cut melons with a grainy or dry-looking flesh. Store whole watermelon in the refrigerator if at all possible and keep no more than a week. If it's too large for your unit, keep in a cool, dark place. Cut watermelon should always be tightly wrapped, refrigerated and used within a day or so. It should be served cold, either in wedges or made into balls and served as part of a fruit cup or salad. Watermelon contains a fair amount of vitamins A and C. See also melon.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: watermelon |
| Nutritional Values: The Nutritional Value for: watermelon |
| Description | Quantity | Energy (calories) |
Carbs (grams) |
Protein (grams) |
Cholesterol (milligrams) |
Weight (grams) |
Fat (grams) |
Saturated Fat (grams) |
| raw | 1 piece | 155 | 35 | 3 | 0 | 482 | 2 | 0.3 |
| raw, diced | 1 cup | 50 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 160 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Word Tutor: watermelon |
Some of us, no matter how much money we have, will never be free enough to take time to stop and eat the heart of the watermelon.
— Harvey B. Mackay.
| Wikipedia: Watermelon |
| This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008) |
| Watermelon | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Magnoliophyta |
| Class: | Magnoliopsida |
| Order: | Cucurbitales |
| Family: | Cucurbitaceae |
| Genus: | Citrullus |
| Species: | C. lanatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai |
|
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum & Nakai, family Cucurbitaceae) can be both the fruit and the plant of a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) herb originally from southern Africa and one of the most common types of melon. This flowering plant produces a special type of fruit known by botanists as a pepo, a berry, which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy center (mesocarp and endocarp); pepos are derived from an inferior ovary and are characteristic of the Cucurbitaceae. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon (although not in the genus Cucumis), has a smooth exterior rind (green, yellow, and sometimes white) and a juicy, sweet interior flesh (usually pink, but sometimes orange, yellow, red, and sometimes green if not ripe).
Contents |
Watermelon is thought to have originated in southern Africa, where it is found growing wild, because it reaches maximum genetic diversity resulting in sweet, bland and bitter forms there. Alphonse de Candolle, in 1882,[1] already considered the evidence sufficient to prove that watermelon was indigenous to tropical Africa.[2] Though Citrullus colocynthis is often considered to be a wild ancestor of watermelon, and is now found native in north and west Africa, Fenny Dane and Jiarong Liu,[3] suggest on the basis of chloroplast DNA investigations, that the cultivated and wild watermelon appear to have diverged independently from a common ancestor, possibly C. ecirrhosus from Namibia.
It is not known when the plant was first cultivated, but Zohary and Hopf note evidence of its cultivation in the Nile Valley from at least as early as the second millennium BC. Although watermelon is not depicted in any Egyptian hieroglyphic text nor does any ancient writer mention it, finds of the characteristically large seed are reported in Twelfth dynasty sites; numerous watermelon seeds were recovered from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.[4] It wasn't present in any other culture of the ancient Mediterranean.[citation needed]
By the 10th century AD, watermelons were being cultivated in China, which is today the world's single largest watermelon producer. By the 13th century, Moorish invaders had introduced the fruit to Europe; and, according to John Mariani's The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, "watermelon" made its first appearance in an English dictionary in 1615.
In Vietnam, legend holds that watermelon was discovered in Vietnam long before it reached China, in the era of the Hùng Kings. According to legend, watermelon was discovered by Prince Mai An Tiêm, an adopted son of the 11th Hùng King. When he was exiled unjustly to an island, he was told that if he could survive for six months, he would be allowed to return. When he prayed for guidance, a bird flew past and dropped a seed. He cultivated the seed and called its fruit "dưa tây" or western melon, because the birds who ate it flew from the west. When the Chinese took over Vietnam in about 110 BC, they called the melons "dưa hảo" (good melon) or "dưa hấu", "dưa Tây", "dưa hảo", "dưa hấu"—all words for "watermelon". An Tiêm's island is now a peninsula in the suburban district of Nga Sơn.[5][6]
Museums Online South Africa list watermelons as having been introduced to North American Indians in the 1500s. Early French explorers found Native Americans cultivating the fruit in the Mississippi Valley. Many sources list the watermelon as being introduced in Massachusetts as early as 1629. Southern food historian John Egerton has said he believes African slaves helped introduce the watermelon to the United States. Texas Agricultural Extension horticulturalist Jerry Parsons lists African slaves and European colonists as having distributed watermelons to many areas of the world. Parsons also mentions the crop being farmed by Native Americans in Florida (by 1664) and the Colorado River area (by 1799). Other early watermelon sightings include the Midwestern states (1673), Connecticut (1747), and the Illiana region (1822).
Charles Fredric Andrus, a horticulturist at the USDA Vegetable Breeding Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, set out to produce a disease-resistant and wilt-resistant watermelon. The result was "that gray melon from Charleston." Its oblong shape and hard rind made it easy to stack and ship. Its adaptability meant it could be grown over a wide geographical area. It produced high yields and was resistant to the most serious watermelon diseases: anthracnose and fusarium wilt.
Today, farmers in approximately 44 states in the U.S. grow watermelon commercially, and almost all these varieties have some Charleston Gray in their lineage. Georgia, Florida, Texas, California and Arizona are the USA's largest watermelon producers.
This now-common watermelon is often large enough that groceries often sell half or quarter melons. There are also some smaller, spherical varieties of watermelon, both red- and yellow-fleshed, sometimes called "icebox melons."
In Japan, farmers of the Zentsuji region found a way to grow cubic watermelons, by growing the fruits in glass boxes and letting them naturally assume the shape of the receptacle.[7] The square shape is designed to make the melons easier to stack and store, but the square watermelons are often more than double the price of normal ones. Pyramid shaped watermelons have also been developed and any polygonal shape may potentially also be used.
For commercial plantings, one beehive per acre (over 9,000 m² per hive) is the minimum recommendation by the US Department of Agriculture for pollination of conventional, seeded varieties. Because seedless hybrids have sterile pollen; pollinizer rows of varieties with viable pollen must also be planted. Since the supply of viable pollen is reduced and pollination is much more critical in producing the seedless variety, the recommended number of hives per acre, or pollinator density, increases to three hives per acre (1,300 m² per hive).
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009) |
Although so-called "seedless" watermelons have far fewer seeds than the seeded varieties, they generally contain at least a few soft, pale seeds. They are the product of crossing a female tetraploid plant (itself the product of genetic manipulation, using colchicine) with diploid pollen. The resulting triploid plant is sterile, but will produce the seedless fruit if pollenized by a diploid plant. For this reason, commercially available seedless watermelon seeds actually contain two varieties of seeds; that of the triploid seedless plant itself (recognizable because the seed is larger), and the diploid plant which is needed to pollenize the triploid. Unless both plant types are grown in the same vicinity, no seedless fruit will result.
| Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Energy 30 kcal 130 kJ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient database |
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Fresh watermelon may be eaten in a variety of ways and is also often used to flavor summer drinks and smoothies.
Watermelon contains about 6% sugar and 92% water by weight.[8] As with many other fruits, it is a source of vitamin C. It is not a significant source of other vitamins and minerals.
The amino acid citrulline was first extracted from watermelon and analysed.[9] Watermelons contain a significant amount of citrulline and after consumption of several kg an elevated concentration is measured in the blood plasma; this could be mistaken for citrullinaemia or other urea cycle disorder.[10]
Watermelon rinds are also edible, and sometimes used as a vegetable[11]. In China, they are stir-fried, stewed, or more often pickled. When stir-fried, the de-skinned and de-fruited rind is cooked with olive oil, garlic, chili peppers, scallions, sugar and rum. Pickled watermelon rind is also commonly consumed in the Southern US,[12] Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria.[citation needed] In the Balkans, especially Serbia, watermelon slatko is also popular [13].Watermelon juice can also be made into wine. [14]
Watermelon is also mildly diuretic[15].
Watermelons contain large amounts of beta carotene.[16]
Watermelon with red flesh is a significant source of lycopene.
A traditional food plant in Africa, this fruit has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare.[17]
There are more than twelve hundred[18] varieties of watermelon ranging in size from less than a pound, to more than two hundred pounds with flesh that is red, orange, yellow, or white.[19] Several notable varieties are included here.
| Wikispecies has information related to: Citrullus vulgaris |
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| Translations: Watermelon |
Nederlands (Dutch)
watermeloen
Français (French)
n. - pastèque, melon d'eau
Deutsch (German)
n. - Wassermelone
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - καρπούζι
Italiano (Italian)
cocomero, anguria
Português (Portuguese)
n. - melancia (f)
Español (Spanish)
n. - sandía, melón de agua
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - vattenmelon
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
西瓜
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 西瓜
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) البطيخ
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