Watermelon - Fruit or Vegetable?

I've been eating a lot of Watermelon lately. How can I not when it's so friggin' hot outside?!? I was reading a magazine & I came across an article claiming Watermelon is a Vegetable! I had to go sleuthing on the Internet to make sure. Well, here is what I've found on watermelon.org:

Watermelon is a Fruit


Watermelon is the fruit of a plant originally from a vine of southern Africa. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon (although not in the genus Cucumis), has a smooth exterior rind and a juicy, sweet, usually red interior flesh. The species descriptor Citrullus vulgaris is sometimes, synonymously, used to refer to this plant (vulgaris meaning "common" — Shosteck, 1974).

Like the pepper, tomato, and pumpkin, watermelon is botanically a fruit. According to Webster’s dictionary and Wikipedia, a fruit is the ripened ovary of a seed plant and its contents, and a watermelon is a large oblong roundish fruit (2004, 2006). Consumers use watermelon primarily as a fruit because of its sweet flavor and refreshing qualities.

Watermelon is Also a Vegetable

According to Webster’s dictionary a vegetable is anything made or obtained from plants (2004). Watermelon is a member of the cucurbitaceae plant family of gourds (classified as Citrullus Lantus), related to the cucumber, squash, and pumpkin (Maynard, 2001). It is planted from seeds or seedlings, harvested, and then cleared from the field like other vegetables. Since watermelon is grown as a vegetable crop using vegetable production systems, watermelon is considered a vegetable (Wolford, 2004).

There we go, it's BOTH! The mystery is over ppl, now go grab yourself a slice of juicy watermelon to beat the summer heat.