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Plant

Watermelon

Citrullus lanatus

Also known as: Citrullus lanatus

A trailing annual in the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae), native to northeast Africa. Domesticated in the Nile Valley at least 5,000 years ago — watermelon seeds appear in Egyptian tombs. Distinguished among cultivated plants by its extremely high water content (~92%), which made it as much a water source as a food across the dry Sahel and Saharan trade routes.

Watermelon
Photo via Wikimedia Commons — see source for license.

Scientific

Citrullus lanatus (family Cucurbitaceae) is in the same family as [[cucumber]], squash, and melon. Modern cultivars are the result of long selection for red lycopene-rich flesh, large size, and reduced seediness — wild watermelons are pale, bitter, and small.

Cultural and historical

Egyptian tomb art (~4,000+ years old) depicts watermelons. The fruit traveled with desert and trans-Saharan trade routes — its water content made it valuable far beyond its calorie value. Watermelon reached India by 800 CE, China by 1100 CE, the Americas with the Atlantic slave trade in the 1600s, after which it became woven into African-American foodways.

Global production

Top producers: China (~60% of global supply), Turkey, India, Iran, Brazil.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

  • Shares approach with: [[cucumber]]
  • Member of: [[plants]]
  • Grown by: [[abbott-farms]] · [[billy-smiths-watermelons-inc]]

Sources

  • FAO Crop Statistics
  • Wikipedia — Watermelon

A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].

Grown by

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Farms and nurseries in the 0mn1.one directory that grow watermelon. Each is a real working operation — visit, buy from, learn from.

What links here, and how

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Scientific

grows

General

shares approach with

  • Baobab auto-linked via shared tag: africa
  • Cucumber auto-linked via shared tag: cucurbit
  • Lettuce auto-linked via shared tag: domesticated
  • Papyrus auto-linked via shared tag: africa
  • Sesame auto-linked via shared tag: africa

7 inbound links · 2 outbound