Calle de las Calas
It takes its name from the calla lily, the white flower with a bell-shaped spathe, in a corner of the district where several streets bear the names of flowers.
The calla lily is that field flower of white furled into a cone, with a yellow spike rising from its centre, growing almost with its feet in the water. It comes from southern Africa and reached European gardens as an ornamental plant. In Spanish it also goes by alcatraz, cartucho or lirio de agua, depending on the region, and its clean silhouette has made it a flower of weddings and altars.
The street belongs to a small floral cluster in the Hispanoamérica district of Chamartín, where the street names filled up with plants. Set against the district’s great avenues, named after republics and liberators on the far side of the Atlantic, this stretch chose the garden.
There is no record of the specific decision that fixed the name or the date it was put up. Anyone walking it crosses a brief stretch, just enough for the calla lily to lend its white to a scrap of the Madrid map.