Calle de Rosa de Silva

The name points to a flower, but its reason is not recorded: there is no person of that name tied to the neighborhood and no rose variety registered under it. The toponym remains undocumented. One reading lies in the word itself. Silva is the Latin for woodland and bramble, the same root as “jungle”; a “rosa de silva” would name the rose that grows wild among the brambles, the dog rose of the hedgerows, thorny and pale-petaled. Calle de Rosa de Silva belongs to Castillejos, a neighborhood that grew north of Cuatro Caminos when those open lots filled with new blocks. Today the office prevails over the garden, and of the rosebush that may have inspired the plaque only the name remains.