Calle Sabal

Behind this short name is a palm. Sabal is a genus of fan palms native to the New World, spread across the southeastern United States, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Its best-known species, the Sabal palmetto or cabbage palm, raises a single sturdy trunk crowned by leaves that open like great fans. The epithet “palmetto” comes from the Spanish “palmito,” the diminutive that Spanish explorers used for this modest-sized palm. The street is not alone in its botanical rarity. In this corner of Delicias, toward Méndez Álvaro, the street directory gathered streets named after uncommon plants and trees: Calle del Mezquite, Calle de la Kentia, Calle del Ombú, Calle del Jacarandá. Calle Sabal fits into that collection of exotic flora transplanted onto the map, in a neighborhood that grew hard against the train tracks.