The Santa Claus or Christmas melon is a large, elongated winter melon with a green, dark-striped rind and mild, pale green honeydew-like flesh. Famous above all for how long it keeps, it belongs to the smooth-skinned Inodorus group of Cucumis melo, stores for weeks to months, and — because a summer-harvested fruit can still be sound at Christmas — it reaches Northern-Hemisphere markets in the depths of winter, eaten chilled in wedges, cubed into fruit salad, and paired with cured ham.