Calle Santolinas
Takes its name from the santolina, an aromatic Mediterranean shrub with silvery leaves and yellow flowers that was used to keep moths away from wardrobes and drawers.
Behind the name of calle Santolinas is a low shrub with gray leaves and yellow flowers in bud, the santolina, which grows wild throughout the Mediterranean basin. It belongs to the daisy family and withstands sun and drought, which made it an easy garden plant for borders and low hedges.
Its strong scent explains much of its domestic fame. Leaves and flowers were dried to place among clothes and keep moths at bay, a custom that earned it the nickname of wardrobe herb. The plant’s very name carries a doubt: some derive it from the Latin sanctum linum, “sacred flax”; others from santonica herba, related to the wormwoods.
The street belongs to the Hispanoamérica neighborhood, in Chamartín, an area that did not begin to be built up until the mid-1970s, where several nearby streets also bear the names of plants.