Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Cucurbitales > Cucurbitaceae > Citrullus > Citrullus lanatusCitrullus lanatus (watermelon)Synonyms: Anguria citrullus; Citrullus aedulis; Citrullus anguria; Citrullus aquosus; Citrullus battich; Citrullus chodospermus; Citrullus citrullus; Citrullus colocynthis capensis; Citrullus colocynthis lanatus; Citrullus colocynthis var. capensis; Citrullus colocynthis var. lanatus; Citrullus edulis; Citrullus lanatus f. nigroseminius; Citrullus lanatus var. albidus; Citrullus lanatus var. caffrorum; Citrullus lanatus var. minor; Citrullus lanatus var. oblongus; Citrullus lanatus var. pulcherrimus; Citrullus lanatus var. pumilus; Citrullus lanatus var. rotundus; Citrullus lanatus var. shami; Citrullus lanatus var. variegatus; Citrullus lanatus var. virgatus; Citrullus lanatus var. viridis; Citrullus lanatus vulgaris; Citrullus vulgaris; Citrullus vulgaris var. caffrorum; Colocynthis amarissima; Colocynthis citrullus; Cucumis citrullus; Cucumis citrullus var. jace; Cucumis citrullus var. pasteca; Cucumis dissectus; Cucumis edulis; Cucumis laciniosus (homotypic); Cucumis melo f. minor; Cucumis melo var. oblongus; Cucumis melo var. rotundus; Cucumis melo var. virgatus; Cucumis purpureus; Cucumis vulgaris; Cucurbita anguria; Cucurbita caffra; Cucurbita citrullus (heterotypic); Cucurbita gigantea; Cucurbita pinnatifida; Momordica lanata (homotypic) Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus var. lanatus, family Cucurbitaceae) is a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) flowering plant originally from southern Africa. It is a large, sprawling annual plant with coarse, hairy pinnately-lobed leaves and white to yellow flowers. It is grown for its large edible fruit, also known as a watermelon, which is a special kind of berry with a hard rind and no internal division, botanically called a pepo. The fruit has a smooth hard rind—usually green with dark green stripes or yellow spots—and a sweet, juicy interior flesh—usually deep red to pink, but sometimes orange, yellow, or white—with many seeds, which can be soft and white or hard and black. |
Edible [1] | May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details. | Flower Type [1] | Monoecious | Hazards [1] | The sprouting seed produces a toxic substance in its embryo; | Lifespan [1] | Annual | Pollinators [1] | Insects, Lepidoptera | Structure [2] | Herb | Usage [1] | The seed contains 20 - 40% oil. As well as being edible, it is also used for making soap and for lighting;
Face masks made from the fruit are used as a cosmetic on delicate skins; | | Height [1] | 20 inches (0.5 m) | Width [1] | 6.56 feet (2 m) | View Plants For A Future Record : Citrullus lanatus |
Attributes / relations provided by ♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License♦ 2Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935 ♦ 3HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández ♦ 4Norrbom, A.L. 2004. Fruit fly (Tephritidae) host plant database. Version Nov, 2004. ♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics. ♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009 |
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0
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