Calle de Guzmania

Behind this name grows a bromeliad with a fiery crest, the guzmania, one of those epiphytes that live clinging to the trunks of the jungles of Central and South America, with bracts that run from scarlet to orange like a small plant torch. The genus was named in the early nineteenth century by the botanists of the expedition to Peru, Hipólito Ruiz and José Pavón, in honor of a companion in hardship. That man was Anastasio Guzmán, a pharmacist and collector of natural history who crossed the Atlantic to travel Chile, Peru, and present-day Ecuador at his own expense. He died in 1807 in the Llanganates range, lost among moors and mists while searching for the legendary treasure the Incas were said to have hidden after the fall of Atahualpa. His name stayed botanically alive in every guzmania grown across the world today. The street is part of the paper garden of Valdeacederas: nearby runs the calle de la Genciana, another that makes up this small herbarium of the neighborhood.