Calle del Plátano

The London plane is the tree that gives the most shade to the people of Madrid: it numbers around fifty thousand and covers nearly a quarter of the city’s street trees. From that giant with a mottled trunk, which sheds its bark in large plates and drops its fruit in hanging balls, this Valdeacederas street takes its name. The name comes as part of a group. When Madrid absorbed Chamartín de la Rosa and the towns on its edge in the mid-twentieth century, many repeated streets appeared, and a good number had to be renamed. In Valdeacederas the solution was to reach for the botanical garden: here run Plátano, Pinos, Loto, Cactus, and Azucenas. The tree itself is a lucky cross. It arose around 1670 from the mixing of a Eurasian oriental plane with an American one. Its name comes from the Greek platys, “wide,” for the breadth of its leaves, the same ones that in summer block the sun over half the city.