Melon is a fruit or a berry?

Even people who are very fond of melon, do not always correctly answer the question: what is this fruit, berry or vegetable in general? This is due to the fact that it was grown by a man for a long time, and many have forgotten where it came from. Let's figure it out.

Melon is a fruit?

Melon is very sweet, so it is often used in the preparation of fruit salads. It contains a large number of different vitamins (PP, C), acids (folic and ascorbic) and elements necessary for man (carotene, silicon, iron, sodium).

Because of this, many call it fruit, but it is not. After all, it grows on the ground, and not on trees or bushes, and the fruits of herbaceous plants are usually called berries or vegetables.


Melon is a berry?

This statement is based on the proximity of two popular melon crops - watermelon and melon. They are similar not only the place of cultivation, but also the internal structure: sweet flesh, many seeds, dense peel. And since the watermelon is a berry, then the melon belongs to this group. But many botanists do not agree with this, because it grows on lashes, like some vegetables (cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini). And for some other external features, the melon is also very similar to them.

Melon is a vegetable?

According to scientific classifications melon belongs to the class of Pumpkin, the species genus Cucumber. It follows that she is a vegetable. But this does not correspond to its taste qualities: sweet, fragrant and juicy, which is more suitable for fruits and berries. Therefore, many people deny that a melon can be a vegetable. But, if you take into account only biological signs, then so it is. After all, she has a very big similarity with cucumber:

It is because the melon has so much in common with vegetable crops that it is referred to this group, but is called a sweet vegetable. In favor of this version can be attributed yet the fact that in China and Japan are grown unsweetened sorts of melons of small size, which are used there as vegetables. This means that its sweet varieties were obtained as a result of the long work of the breeders and then were imported to the countries of Europe.

In order not to be confused as to which group a melon should be treated, it was called a false-eagle or a squash.