50 Fun Facts About Watermelon

Botanically, the watermelon fruit is a type of berry with a hard rind. What is that kind of fruit called?

The same term covers cucumbers, pumpkins and squash, all in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae.

Watermelon fruit is roughly what percentage water?

About 6% is sugars, with almost no fat or protein; early farmers stored the fruit as a water source for dry seasons.

The modern watermelon was first domesticated in which country?

Kordofan melons from Sudan are its closest relatives and share the loss of the bitterness gene; it may have been cultivated in the Nile Valley by 2340 BC.

Wild watermelon seeds about 5,000 years old were found at Uan Muhuggiag, in which country?

A 2022 study traced 6,000-year-old seeds from the Libyan desert to the egusi seeds of Nigeria.

A 4,000-year-old tomb image of an apparent watermelon was found in which civilisation?

Those early melons were not sweet; dessert watermelons spread across the Mediterranean in Roman times.

Early watermelons differed from today's in taste and colour. What were they like?

They were also hard to open; sweetness and a softer rind came from centuries of selective breeding.

Which people brought the watermelon to Iberia, with cultivation recorded in Córdoba in 961?

It reached India by the 7th century and East Asia by the 10th, and appeared in European herbals by 1600.

Spanish settlers were growing watermelons in which future US state as early as 1576?

It reached Massachusetts by 1629, and Native Americans were growing it in the Mississippi valley around the same time.

Which explorer is credited with introducing watermelons to Hawaii and other Pacific islands?

The fruit's high water content made it valuable on long voyages.

Which country produces about 64% of the world's watermelons?

World production in 2023 was 105 million tonnes; India, Turkey, Algeria and Brazil follow.

Which US state, one of about four dozen growing the crop commercially, produces the most watermelon?

Georgia, Texas, California and Arizona round out the top five, and about 44 states grow the crop commercially.

Seedless watermelons were first developed in 1939 by scientists from which country?

The triploid hybrids lacked disease resistance at first; by 2014 seedless types made up nearly 85% of US watermelon sales.

Because seedless watermelons have sterile pollen, growers must plant what alongside them?

The USDA recommends three beehives per acre for seedless crops instead of one; poor pollination causes 'hollow heart'.

The heaviest recorded watermelon, a 2013 Carolina Cross from Tennessee, weighed about how much?

The variety typically produces fruit of 30 to 70 kg; the record is held by Guinness World Records.

Roughly how many watermelon cultivars exist?

Flesh can be red, pink, orange, yellow or white, and 'Moon and Stars' with its speckled rind dates from 1926.

The 'Densuke' watermelon, with its round fruit and near-black rind, is grown where?

The 'Melitopolski' is the small round melon piled high by Moscow vendors in summer, and 'Cream of Saskatchewan' has white flesh.

Cube-shaped watermelons, grown inside boxes, were invented in 1978 in Japan by whom?

Tomoyuki Ono's melons must be picked unripe to hold their shape, so they are ornamental; prices have reached $200.

Why are Japanese cube watermelons generally inedible?

They appeal to wealthy or fashionable buyers as gifts and were selling for two to three times the price of ordinary melons in 2001.

Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton, is also famous for what watermelon-related feat?

Lloyd Bright set the town's last record with a 268.8-pound melon in 2005; the town slogan is 'A Slice of the Good Life'.

The Watermelon Thump, with its famous seed-spitting contest, is held each June in which Texas town?

The festival takes place over the last full weekend of June.

Which Georgia city calls itself the 'watermelon capital of the world'?

It is the seat of Crisp County, which in 1930 also had the first county-owned electric system.

The red pigment in watermelon flesh, also responsible for the colour of tomatoes, is which carotenoid?

Its name comes from a former genus name for the tomato, and it is also found in pink grapefruit and red guava.

Citrulline, named from the Latin for watermelon, was first isolated in 1914 from which part of the fruit?

Japanese researchers Koga and Ōtake isolated it; the body also makes it as a byproduct of producing nitric oxide.

The gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes watermelon, has roughly how many species?

Its 101 genera include cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, zucchini and the calabash gourd.

Which naturalist first described the watermelon in 1753, calling it Cucurbita citrullus?

German botanist Heinrich Schrader moved it to the genus Citrullus in 1836; the current name Citrullus lanatus was formally conserved only in 2017.

The wild tsamma melon was a vital water source for travellers in which desert?

Watermelons remain an important water source for people and animals in southern and eastern Africa.

What is the bitter wild watermelon relative treated as a pest in Western Australia known as locally?

Citrullus amarus has spread across semi-arid regions on several continents.

'Watermelon snow', the pink-tinged snow seen in the Sierra Nevada and polar regions, is caused by what?

Chlamydomonas nivalis carries the red carotenoid astaxanthin alongside its chlorophyll and thrives in freezing water.

Harry Styles' first US number one, 'Watermelon Sugar', takes its title from a 1968 novel by whom?

The song from Fine Line won the 2021 Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance and a Brit for Song of the Year.

'Watermelon Sugar' won which award at the 2021 Grammys?

It reached the top ten in more than 20 countries and topped the Billboard Hot 100.

The jazz standard 'Watermelon Man' was written in 1962 by which pianist for his debut album Takin' Off?

Mongo Santamaría's cover reached number 10 on the Hot 100 in 1963 and paid Hancock's bills for years; he re-cut it as funk on Head Hunters in 1973.

Comedian Gallagher's signature routine smashed watermelons with a giant mallet he called what?

Front-row audiences at his shows learned to bring plastic sheeting; he died in 2022.

In the 1970 satire Watermelon Man, a bigoted white insurance salesman wakes up one morning to find what?

Godfrey Cambridge played the lead in both guises; Van Peebles went on to make Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

For African Americans after emancipation, watermelons were originally a symbol of what?

The stereotype arose in the late 1860s as a backlash against Black economic independence; the first published caricature appeared in 1869.

Egusi, the protein-rich seeds ground into a staple West African soup, come from what kind of plants?

A 2022 study linked ancient Libyan watermelon seeds to Nigeria's egusi, suggesting the fruit's early history ran through West Africa too.

Watermelon seeds are black when mature. What colour are they when immature?

The flesh can be red, pink, orange, yellow, green or white; the rind is edible once cooked and is often pickled.

A watermelon plant bears separate male and female flowers on one plant. What is that called?

Male flowers dominate early in the season; the female ones, which become fruit, appear later.

What is the condition called when a watermelon develops a large, often symmetrical hole inside?

It is thought to result from too little pollen; the fruit is still perfectly safe to eat.

The watermelon emoji became a symbol of resistance for which Ukrainian region famous for the fruit?

The same emoji is used for Palestinian solidarity and by eco-socialists, 'green on the outside, red on the inside'.

Watermelons need a long season. From transplanting, roughly how long do they take to mature?

The 'Golden Midget', with its golden rind, is a quick one at 70 days from planting.

In Chinese culture, watermelons symbolise good fortune and are gifted during which festival?

China grows roughly 60% of the world's crop, with India, Turkey, Algeria and Brazil a distant second tier.

'Green on the outside, red on the inside' makes the watermelon a symbol of which political outlook?

The same fruit has done heavy symbolic duty elsewhere, from Palestinian solidarity to Ukraine's Kherson region.

Old thick-rinded cultivars like 'Tom Watson' and 'Black Diamond' are still prized for making what?

Thick rinds fell out of commercial favour, so seeds for these varieties now circulate mostly among home gardeners and specialty seed houses.

Charles Andrus bred his disease-resistant 'gray melon' of 1954 at a USDA lab in which city?

Its oblong shape and hard rind made it easy to stack and ship, and it shrugged off anthracnose and fusarium wilt.

Which 1926 heirloom variety has a dark rind dotted with small yellow circles and one big one?

Even the foliage is spotted; the melons weigh 9 to 23 kg and hide brown seeds in pink or red flesh.

How many beehives per acre does the USDA recommend for pollinating seeded watermelon plantings?

Seedless hybrids need three, because their pollen is sterile and every fruit depends on bees carrying viable pollen from pollinizer rows.

By which century were watermelons being cultivated in India?

The fruit reached China about three hundred years later, and did not show up in European herbals until around 1600.

The white-fleshed 'Cream of Saskatchewan' was brought to Canada by immigrants from where?

Its small round fruit and 80-to-85-day season let it ripen in cool climates where most varieties struggle.

For how long can the San people survive on a diet of wild tsamma melons alone?

The variety grows wild in the Kalahari, where its juicy white flesh supplies both food and water to people and animals.

Citrullus mucosospermus, the watermelon's closest wild relative, is native to which region?

Until 2015 a tendril-less South African species held that title, thanks to a misidentified 18th-century specimen.