Calle Hortensias

Calle Hortensias takes its name from the flower of the same name, that shrub of round clusters —⁠blue, pink or white⁠— that adorns courtyards and gardens across half the world. It runs through a quiet corner of Nueva España, in Chamartín, an area of residential streets christened with plant names that carry the garden-suburb idea into the street map. The hydrangea reached Europe from Japan and China in the eighteenth century, brought by French naturalists as an ornamental plant. Its scientific name, Hydrangea, is formed from the Greek roots for “water” and “vessel”, after the capsule shape of its seeds. The common name has a disputed origin, credited to a woman called Hortense in eighteenth-century France. No documentary record survives of the exact reason for this particular street, beyond its belonging to that set of botanically themed roads.