What is the difference between vegetable melon and cucumber? A quick guide to telling the two melons apart

1. Leaf differences

Vegetable melon leaves are alternate, and the leaf blades are ovate or kidney-shaped, with width and length roughly equal.

The cucumber petiole is slightly thick and covered with rough stiff hairs, about 10 to 16 cm long; the leaf blade is broadly ovate-cordate, membranous, about 7 to 20 cm long and wide, rough on both sides, and covered with stiff fuzz. The leaves have 3 to 5 angles or shallow lobes, the lobes triangular and serrated, with an acute or semi-acute tip and a semicircular curved notch at the base.

2. Flower differences

Vegetable melon flowers are solitary, or sparsely clustered, and the flowers are yellow.

Cucumber flowers are clustered in the leaf axils; the corolla is yellowish-white, about 2 cm long, and the corolla lobes are oblong-lanceolate.

3. Fruit differences

Vegetable melon fruit is fleshy, long-cylindrical or elliptical, with a smooth outer skin bearing longitudinal lines; the skin is greenish-white or pale green, and the flesh is white or pale green, juicy and crisp.

Cucumber fruit is oblong, 10 to 30 cm long, yellow-green, with a non-smooth surface bearing spiny wart-like bumps.