Headscratchers / The Years of Rice and Salt

• The author has deliberately stripped from the prose any loanwords and neologisms that would betray the ongoing existence of European culture and its influence on the world generally (for example, radioactive elements aren't named for Roman gods, etc.) However, at one point a plant with a Spanish name is referenced - and it's a New World plant, so it can't just be that it's left over from when the Spanish, well, existed. Presumably Robinson either forgot or just hoped no one would notice.