Calle de Palmito

The palmito gives this short street in the Nueva España district, in Chamartín, its name. Under that name lives a tenacious plant, Chamaerops humilis, the only palm that grows wild in Europe. It raises no slender trunk like its tropical relatives: it sprouts in a clump, with fan-shaped leaves of a greyish green that open like stiff fingers, and it withstands drought, harsh sun and frost all along the Mediterranean coast. The countryside made use of that palm for centuries. The tender white heart at its centre was eaten in salad, and its fibres served to weave baskets, brooms and mats. Why this name was chosen for a Madrid street has gone undocumented; the neighbouring streets draw on plants and trees —⁠Dracena, Encinas⁠—⁠, so Palmito fits into a neighbourhood where the naming looks to botany more than to proper names.