Calle del Mundillo

El mundillo is a shrub. That is the Spanish name for the Viburnum opulus, the same one gardeners call the snowball tree. In spring it opens spherical clusters of white flowers, tight and scentless, which from afar look like snowballs hung from the branches. In autumn the white gives way to scarlet leaves and to bright red berries, toxic to people though not to birds. It was an everyday garden plant, one of those that grew beside the wall. The Flemish painters of the seventeenth century included it in their flower still lifes. Calle del Mundillo sits in Valdeacederas, whose name is usually read as the valley of sorrel. Here, among the old streams and orchards of Tetuán, the plant names were grouped like a small street herbarium.