Calle del Cactus
Named after the spiny plant of the American deserts, part of a batch of Tetuán streets christened with plant names in the mid-20th century.
The name comes straight from the plant: the cactus, those spiny succulents that endure the desert by storing water in their fleshy stems and that crossed the Atlantic from America to become familiar on patios and windowsills.
Madrid opened the street in August 1948, in the Berruguete neighborhood. The street belongs to an area sown with plant names: a few steps away run streets dedicated to mint, the Madonna lily or the orange tree. Most reached the map when duplicate names had to be sorted out after the northern towns were annexed, and the botanical repertoire offered a clean supply of unique names.
Why the cactus and not another plant was never documented. What remains is the contrast: a dryland American plant naming a working-class street in the Madrid that grew up against Bravo Murillo.