Calle de la Kentia

The kentia is a palm native to a speck in the Pacific: Lord Howe Island, off the coast of Australia. There Howea forsteriana grows wild, described in 1870 under the genus name Kentia. The genus was later reclassified, but the popular name had already stuck to the plant. The first seeds left the island for European nurseries in the 1870s, and the palm made a career of Victorian drawing rooms. It withstood the gloom and dry air of houses, so it thrived where other plants gave up. It filled the palm courts of grand hotels and luxury liners; the Titanic had specimens aboard. Calle de la Kentia belongs to a cluster of streets in this part of Arganzuela named after plants and trees. The name recalls a broad-leaved indoor palm, brought from the far side of the world to European flats.