10 Juicy Fun Facts About Watermelon: Discover Its Sweet Origins and More!

1. African Wild Watermelon Party

If you've ever wondered where watermelon parties, the answer might lie in the African wild: Watermelon is actually native to central and southern Africa, descended from the undomesticated citron melon, and shares the vine-crop family tree with cucumbers and melons, but keeps a family distance from squashes, pumpkins, and gourds.
Source => encyclopedia.com

2. Fruit or Vegetable: The Watermelon Conundrum

Talk about a juicy identity crisis: Is watermelon a fruit or a vegetable? Well, its rind suggests it's doing its best cucumber cosplay and even gets stir-fried or pickled in places like China, Russia, and the US, while Webster's dictionary cheekily dubs it a vegetable crop, too. Our verdict: watermelon – the hilarious hybrid!
Source => plansponsor.com

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=> Fun Facts about Strawberries

3. Squaring the Melon: Japan's Cube Fruit

Who needs a jack-in-the-box when you can have a melon in a square? Japan's got your back with their high-end supermarket décor: Zentsuji square watermelons, exclusively grown for ornamentation and recognized under Japan's Geographical Indication Protection System, are molded into perfect cubes by enclosing the growing fruit in transparent containers, rendering them inedible and creating the ultimate conversation piece for five-star hotels and luxe fruit shops.
Source => japanesefoodguide.com

4. Secretly Nutritious: Watermelon's Hidden Powers

Blink and you just might miss it: that green-striped party-crasher quenching your thirst and secretly showering your body with nutritional goodies! Behind those luscious, juicy bites of watermelon lay a wondrous, refreshing truth: packed with a whopping 91% water content, vitamins A and C, potassium, and the antioxidant lycopene that lends it a rosy hue, watermelon is not just a thirst-quencher, it's also a nutritional powerhouse!
Source => myfooddata.com

5. Ancient Canteen: Watermelon Through the Ages

Before water bottles and hydration stations, folks had a juicy trick up their sleeves: enter the thirst-quenching watermelon – nature's ancient canteen! A wild blast from the past: watermelons were first cultivated for their high water content as a stored water source during dry seasons, with seeds traced back to ancient settlements in the Dead Sea region and prehistoric sites in Libya 5,000 years ago. Astonishingly enough, "watermelon" hailed from Latin words for "bitter" and "apple," not, as you might think, for a soggier sensation.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

6. First Harvest: Saharan Watermelon Snackers

Before hippos started munching on giant cucumbers and Egyptians got their hands on these juicy delights, a bunch of ancient herders were snacking away in the Sahara: The first watermelon harvest actually goes back more than 6,000 years, with Saharan herders enjoying wild watermelons for their seeds, rather than being cultivated in Egypt 5,000 years ago as commonly believed. In the realm of watermelon history, archaeologists and geneticists are working together to uncover the mysteries of this fruit's evolution and domestication.
Source => smithsonianmag.com

7. Chris Kent: Watermelon's Record-Breaking Weightlifter

When life gave Chris Kent lemons, he said, "Nope, I'll grow a gargantuan watermelon instead": Back in 2013, Chris Kent from the USA created a fruity sensation by growing the world's heaviest watermelon, tipping the scales at a mind-boggling 159 kilograms—equivalent to three adult human beings, and shattering the previous record with a 19.2 kg advantage, using his special crossbred seeds of 291 Kent and 274 Kent watermelon varieties.
Source => guinnessworldrecords.com

8. Oklahoma: The Watermelon Wonderland

Picture this: a group of watermelons on a countryside road trip, stopping in Oklahoma for the ultimate melon party. Why? Because Oklahoma is their Disneyland: As the largest vegetable crop in the state, watermelons thrive in certain west central, south-central, and eastern areas, sometimes achieving more than 15 tons per acre thanks to ideal conditions and savvy management.
Source => extension.okstate.edu

9. Heat Stroke Relief: No Cleopatra Coolers Here

Breaking news out of ancient Egypt: Cleopatra wasn't sippin' on refreshing watermelon coolers to fend off the desert heat! Now let's clear the pulp: While there is no evidence of crushed watermelon being used specifically for heat stroke in ancient Egypt, none other than Greek physician Hippocrates did recommend this juicy fruit as a heat stroke remedy, thanks to its hydrating powers and naturally occurring electrolytes.
Source => sparklingcbd.com

10. Rarest Rinds: Say Hello to Yellow and Orange

Feeling rind-boggled by watermelon options? Get ready to meet the melon-derful world of rarer rinds: Yellow and orange-flesh watermelons aren't just colorful curiosities – they come in seeded and seedless varieties, often boast tiger-striped rinds, and can be larger than their red-fleshed counterparts!
Source => vegcropshotline.org