Calle de la Veza

Vetch is a climbing herb with hollow stems and leaves split into pairs of leaflets, of the same family as broad beans and peas. It has long been sown in Mediterranean fields to feed livestock and fixes nitrogen in the soil, so the farmer would plow it under to enrich the ground before the next harvest. The name fits the neighborhood’s memory. Valdeacederas means “valley of the sorrels,” another wild plant, and it grew out of the gardens that stepped down along the streams at the foot of the Tetuán heights, worked by day laborers who had come from elsewhere. From that green calling a habit stayed in the street map: streets named after flower, shrub and herb are common here —⁠the calle de las Azucenas, the calle de la Salvia⁠—⁠, and to them is added the calle de la Veza, with no record surviving of why this plant and not another was chosen.