Watermelon is the favourite summer fruit in the hot and dry
regions of India. It is common sight to see vendors with huge fruits piled
under a tree.
Watermelon is an annual herbacious vine with long (up to 10 m) stems lying
or creeping on the ground, with curly tendrils. Leaves are 5-20 by 3-19 cm,
and hairy, usually deeply palmately lobed with 3-5 lobes. Leaf stalks are
2-19 cm long. Male flowers on 1.2-4.5 cm long pedicels. Flowers 1-2.5 cm
long, pale green. Flowers monoecious, solitary, on pedicels up to 4.5 cm
long; with 5 shortly united petals, pale green. Fruit of wild plants 1.5-20
cm in diameter, nearly spherical, greenish, mottled with darker green; of
cultivated plants up to 30x60 cm, spherical or ellipsoid, green or
yellowish, evenly coloured or variously mottled or striped. Fruits vary
considerably in morphology. The cultivated forms of the fruit are large
oblong.
Identification credit: Aarti Khale
Photographed in Siranagar & Mumbai.
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The flower labeled Watermelon is ...