Calle Lino

Flax is a herb with a straight, hollow stem that flowers in pale blue and holds in its stalks the fibre humans have woven for millennia. Its seeds yield oil; its fibres, the cool cloth that filled homes long before cotton. The street belongs to a corner of Tetuán sown with plant names: Margaritas, Magnolia, Miosotis, Cantueso. Almost all arrived in the mid-20th century, when Madrid absorbed Chamartín de la Rosa and the tangle of duplicated street names had to be undone; botany served as a clean quarry of fresh names. There is no record of why this plant was chosen for this particular stretch. Today it is a short residential street in Castillejos, linking calle de la Infanta Mercedes with Naranjo, another name from the same paper orchard.