Calle de las Encinas

The holm oak gives its name to this street in the Nueva España district of Chamartín, raised over the old outskirts of the village of Chamartín de la Rosa that Madrid absorbed in the mid-20th century. When its residential blocks were laid out, the street names drew on a botanical repertoire: a few steps away run Abedul, Cipreses, Madreselva, Lilas, Azulinas and Saxífraga. Calle de las Encinas belongs to that green family. The holm oak is the tree that best sums up the dry landscape of the central plateau. Its name comes from Latin, from a word for these evergreen oaks. It grows slowly and lives long, with a broad crown and a sweet acorn, food for pigs and, in times of hunger, for people too. There is no record of any particular reason tying this street to the holm oak beyond the group’s shared theme. The tree that named it withstands droughts that break showier species, amid the brick of Nueva España.