Horned Melon

Horned Melon, Cucumis metuliferus

Prismacolor colored pencils on Stonehenge paper

Have you seen these little spiky creatures at your grocery store? I saw some a few months ago, but didn't buy one as I had no time to draw it then. I've been scouting the produce section for them ever since, and—lo and behold—there they were last weekend! (I was going to get two, but that was before I realized they were about $6 apiece. Yikes.)

The horned melon is also known as the kiwano melon or the African horned melon, but I prefer its cute nicknames: hedged melon, blowfish melon, and jelly melon.

I drew the outside first and tried to see if the spikes fell in any kind of pattern or symmetry. (You know about my obsession with radial symmetry in nature.) But they seemed to be rather randomly arranged. So imagine my surprise when I cut it in half to draw the inside: My cut went through 3 spikes that were in an almost perfect equilateral triangle! In fact, the whole cross-section was shaped like a circle with 6 flattened faces. The cross-section looks very much like a cucumber (which is in the same family).

I am intrigued by fruits and vegetables, such as watermelon and kiwi, whose insides are in sharp contrast to their outerwear. This one pretty much wins the prize in that category, doesn't it?
(And, no I haven't tasted it...yet!)