Calle Nenúfar

The water lily floats on the still water of ponds, with its round leaves and flowers that open to the sun. Here it names a short street in Berruguete, part of the herbarium of streets that covers much of the neighbourhood: a few steps away lie Margaritas, Gladiolo, Zinia, Hierbabuena and Cactus. The word has more mileage than the street itself. It begins in the Sanskrit nīlautpala, “blue lotus,” passes into Persian and from there into Arabic, which brought it to the peninsula. In Andalusi speech the first l came to be pronounced n by contagion with the next, and from that nīnūfar came today’s nenúfar. These plant streets reached the registry in the mid-20th century, when Madrid absorbed Chamartín de la Rosa and many Tetuán streets were renamed to undo the duplicated names. Flowers and plants came up, a repertoire easy to expand without treading on anyone’s memory.