Calle Vinca

The name comes from the vinca, also called periwinkle or maiden’s herb, a ground-covering plant with evergreen leaves and a bluish-violet flower that spreads across the floor of cool, shady places. Its creeping stem takes root as soon as it touches earth, hence its etymology: from the Latin vincire, “to bind, to fasten.” It covers shaded banks with a dark green scattered with blue stars. The street belongs to one of the most flowery corners of Madrid. At this edge of Tetuán, above all in Almenara and Valdeacederas, dozens of streets named after plants cluster together: Geranios, Heliotropo, Palmera, Ailanto. Tradition links those names to the gardens of a former country estate, though most were fixed in the mid-twentieth century, when Madrid absorbed the neighboring municipalities and had to rename duplicated streets. No record survives of the exact reason this flower was chosen for this stretch.