Radical 97 or radical melon (瓜部) meaning "melon" is one of the 23 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 5 strokes (6 strokes in Japanese).
In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 55 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.
There is a design nuance between the form of 瓜 in modern Japanese and in other languages. Traditionally, the character consists of five strokes. In Japanese kanji simplification, however, the third stroke (i.e. a vertical-horizontal turning stroke) was broken into two strokes, and 瓜 became a six-stroke radical character. This change also applies to hyōgai kanji.
Chinese (Mainland China)
Chinese (Taiwan)
Modern Japanese
瓜
瓜
瓜
瓞
瓞
瓞
Literature
Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN0-89659-774-1.
GF 0011-2009 Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components prescribes 201 principle indexing components and 100 associated indexing components (in brackets) used in Simplified Chinese. Not all associated indexing components are listed above.