Calle del Trébol

The clover reached the map out of administrative necessity. When Madrid absorbed the municipality of Chamartín de la Rosa in the mid-twentieth century, the duplicate names had to be undone, and the solution was to sow much of Valdeacederas with plants. Side by side came streets like Azucenas, Margaritas and Magnolia, and among them this Calle del Trébol. There is no record of why it got the clover and not another plant from the herbarium. The clover fits entirely within its hundred-odd metres. The street begins at Marqués de Viana and narrows at one point into a passage with steps, one of the barrio’s impossible gradients, before opening toward Azucenas. Whoever climbs it passes, literally, from a clover to a lily.