Calle de Bardala
Bears the name of the bardala, a folk variant of the burdock, that wild weed whose fruits cling to clothing and fur.
The bardala is a plant name. Beneath that dialect form, rare and little used, lies the burdock —the wayside thistle—, a herb with enormous leaves that grows unbidden in ditches and empty lots. Its fruit is a ball of tiny hooks that clings to animals' fur and to a walker’s stockings.
That stubbornness for gripping has a famous sequel: in the 1940s a Swiss engineer came back from walking in the Alps with his clothes and his dog covered in these burrs, looked at them under the microscope and copied the idea. So was born Velcro.
The name fits its surroundings. In this corner of Valdeacederas several streets bear the names of plants and flowers —Miosotis, Azucenas, Gardenias—, a small street herbarium traced when the neighbourhood was built over former farmland.