 According to Florida State's Department of Plant Pathology and Agronomy, watermelon mosaic virus is a potyvirus whose particles are 760 nm long flexuous rods which has a single strand of RNA.This particular genome structure closely relates WMV to other crop viruses such as "Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV)" and "Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV)".In its hosts, it induces cylindrical inclusions in the cytoplasm which damages the host's tissue.