Calle del Cantueso

The cantueso grows low to the ground in the dry, stony soils of the Mediterranean, a small shrub of the lavender family that in spring raises purple spikes crowned by a tuft of bracts that draws the bees. It is also known as French lavender. The street belongs to a set of Valdeacederas streets christened with the names of plants and flowers: Margaritas, Magnolia, Miosotis, Jaramagos. When Madrid absorbed in 1948 the town of Chamartín de la Rosa, to which Tetuán belonged, it found many streets repeating names from the center, and to undo the duplication the map turned to wild flora. No trace of the plant remains on the street. The cantueso flowered on the hills that surrounded the town, in years when these houses did not yet exist.