Calle de los Narcisos

The narcissus gives its name to this street: a bulb flower that appears at the end of winter and opens its yellow or white cups before the countryside has fully woken. Many varieties grow in dense clusters, give off a strong scent and fade quickly, a fitting herald of spring. Calle de los Narcisos takes up a corner of the Hispanoamérica district where the names left aside for a moment the American countries that order the street plan and turned to the garden. There is no written record of the reason for this particular street, but its name fits that small botanical batch that made its way through when the area was developed, well into the 20th century. The flower’s name is an old one. The word narciso has been linked since antiquity to a Greek term pointing to drowsiness, the effect once attributed to its strong smell. From there came too the youth of the myth, the one who fell in love with his own reflection in the water and stayed gazing at it until he wasted away; where he fell, so the legend goes, sprang the flower that bears his name.